The Odyssey

Product Information

Meet Ingrid. She works on a gargantuan luxury cruise liner, where she spends her days reorganizing the merchandise and waiting for long-term guests to drop dead in the changing rooms. On her days off, she disembarks from the ship and gets blind drunk on whatever the local alcohol is. It's not a bad life. And it distracts her from thinking about the other life she left behind five years ago. Told from the point of view of a narrator that you can't really trust, this book definitely delves into the "messy woman" genre that I have grown to love. The description compared it to the likes of Sally Rooney and Ottessa Moshfegh, but I would say that I wouldn't necessarily agree with those comparisons, and there's nothing quite like this book out there (at least that I've read). The Odyssey follows an unhinged, depressed, alcoholic Ingrid who works at the gift shop on a luxury cruise line. She’s got that classic dry british humor and is fumbling aimlessly through life until she gets tapped for a special mentorship program run by the ships ecentric captain. The program pushes Ingrid to reflect on her past mistakes while indoctrinating her into a cult like wabi-sabi way of life. A Most Anticipated Book of 2022 by The Millions * A Best Book to Read in April by Town & Country and The AV Club * One of 2022's Best Beach Reads by Southern Living Set on the Microsoft campus in Washington state, Microserfs explores the feudal-like work culture at the company: the employees the novel follows are the serfs presided over by Bill Gates. It was one of the first novels to anticipate a dystopian culture in the tech industry that would soon become the norm, and one particular scene in which an employee slips “flat foods” (such as slices of processed cheese) beneath the office door of another employee, to ensure that they actually eat while working, has haunted me for 20 years.

Discussing ones self and the extents in which we can go to to not only feel accepted, wanted and seen but to also mend and forgive our past tribulations. What I particularly loved about this theme was how as a reader it was blatantly obvious and appalling when Ingrid would do certain acts just to feel accepted and part of a group, though she never saw how horrific these requests were. It really made me contemplate in our everyday life, what we may do as individuals to feel accepted and seen even when we inherently know they're wrong; a conversation I had never read about before, but one that was done in such a unique and somber way.

A Note From the Publisher

This subversive satire on consumer capitalism and the millennial search for meaning is darkly comic existential fiction at its best.” - Culture Whisper (UK) The only elements that I unfortunately didn't like were at times, I felt completely out of the story due to the repetitiveness of Ingrid's everyday activities. Though I am very aware that this was another commentary within the book - how we can enjoy yet equally tire from the tediousness of an average, everyday routine. People could argue then, that Lara Williams perfectly executed that within her writing, and I whole heartedly agree though at times I didn't particularly enjoy it. As well as this, the blurb mentions that the book is 'hilariously funny' but I personally thought it was everything but. There were moments throughout the story that undoubtedly made me laugh but the tone of the novel was so melancholic and so satirically ironic that no moment for me seemed hilarious. much can be interpreted from each facet of the novel, which ultimately i think is where i struggled. in places, it reads as a classic case of too many ideas and not enough development. certainly, we can decipher ingrid's appetite for destruction as reminiscent of the implications and expectations placed on women in contemporary capitalist society. she chooses to shun a stable marriage for the unconventional, where the possibilities are endless. the chapters flit between her life on sea and on land, the latter making for some of the most compelling reading in the novel. as a character, ingrid is both predictable and out of reach - we are never really sure where we stand with her, nor are we able to fully understand how much of her narrative voice is reliable. That is, until the day she is selected by the ship’s enigmatic captain and (ill-informed) wabi sabi devotee, Keith, for his mentorship program. Encouraging her to reflect on past mistakes and her desperation to remain lost at sea, Keith pushes Ingrid further than she ever thought possible. But as her friendships and professional life onboard steadily fall apart, Ingrid must ask herself: how do you know when you have gone too far? A few years ago I came across a Grace Paley interview in which she stated she cannot write a character until she knows who their family are and where they get their money: a writing practice I fully endorse. And so all fictional characters generally need a terrible job. Here are my top 10 …

As its title suggests, Lara Williams’s The Odyssey is about a journey. Ingrid works on a cruise ship that crisscrosses the globe. The ship, the WA, is as large as some towns and comes complete with acres of swimming pools, restaurants and gift shops where long-term guests have an inconvenient habit of dying.The Odyssey, Lara Williams’ dystopian modern retelling of Homer’s epic poem, is a surreal trip through a troubled woman’s psyche that examines the profound alienation of the contemporary workplace.

I was intrigued by this book as it was pitched as similar to JG Ballard's High Rise, which it is in some respects, with the closed off cruise ship gradually decaying, but The Odyssey is much more focused on one person's mental state than the cruise ship itself. The blurb compares the book to Ottessa Moshfegh’s, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Woman and Sally Rooney’s novels and while it contains similar themes to all three – the dangers of capitalism, alienation and search for meaning and belonging and the descent into madness – I have never read anything like this. Reading this story is a disorienting experience, with the feel of a fever dream that becomes increasingly sobering as Ingrid nears closer and closer to her home: both on land, and within herself. Ingrid works on a gargantuan luxury cruise liner where she spends her days reorganizing the gift shop shelves and waiting for long-term guests to drop dead in the aisles. On her days off, she disembarks from the ship, wasting the hours aimlessly following tourists around, drinking the local alcohol, and buying clothes she never intends to wear again. It's not a bad life. At least, it distracts her from thinking about the other life--the other person--she left behind five years ago. From the prize-winning author of Supper Club—a debut novel that Vogue called “ Stephanie Danler’s Sweetbitter meets Donna Tartt’s The Secret History“—comes The Odyssey, a fresh twist on the epic journey and an unapologetic takedown of capitalism and “lifestyle” that will appeal to fans of Melissa Broder and Ottessa Moshfegh (Molly Young, The New York Times)

If you haven’t read Williams before, go for Supper Club instead of this; if you think the premise of The Odyssey sounds promising, read Sam Byers’ Come Join Our Disease.

It's difficult to say much about this book without veering into interpretation that gives away more than I'd have wanted to know before reading this, and I'm actually still unsure about how secure my reading of the book is. So I'll just say that this is weirdly compulsive and enigmatic and yet a bit ploddy at the same time. That is, until the day she is selected by the ship's enigmatic captain and (ill-informed) wabi sabi devotee, Keith, for his mentorship program. Encouraging her to reflect on past mistakes and her desperation to remain lost at sea, Keith pushes Ingrid further than she ever thought possible. But as her friendships and professional life onboard steadily fall apart, Ingrid must ask herself: how do you know when you have gone too far? Ingrid works on a gargantuan luxury cruise liner where she spends her days reorganizing the gift-shop shelves and waiting for long-term guests to drop dead in the aisles. That is, until the day she is selected by the ship's enigmatic captain and self-appointed lifestyle guru, Keith, for his mentorship program. From the prize-winning author of Supper Club--a debut novel that Vogue called " Stephanie Danler's Sweetbitter meets Donna Tartt's The Secret History"--comes The Odyssey, a fresh twist on the epic journey and an unapologetic takedown of capitalism and "lifestyle" that will appeal to fans of Melissa Broder and Ottessa Moshfegh (Molly Young, New York Times) Couldn’t stop reading . . . Original and intriguing, I’ll be digesting this one for a while.” - Laura Harvey, Copper Dog Books (MA)A Most Anticipated Book of 2022 by The Millions • A Best Book to Read in April by Town & Country and The AV Club • One of 2022’s Best Beach Reads by Southern Living Ingrid is our narrator here. She works aboard the WA, a huge cruise ship that has been her whole world for several years now. She cycles through a rotation of jobs – gift shop employee, nail technician, lifeguard – and has only 2 friends, Mia and Ezra, with whom she plays disturbing and odd games. Her life and the novel itself is broken up by incidences of shore leave where she gets obliteratingly drunk and makes increasingly dangerous and unhinged decisions. On board the WA she has been chosen to be part of something referred to only as “The Program”. This is lead by an enigmatic man named Keith who encourages Ingrid to reveal the most intimate details of her past to him. It is a book that demands of the reader just as much as it rewards them with. All of the characters were so unique, interesting and flawed that I would have liked to have known a bit more about them. It felt like they floated in and out of the novel and could disappear at any time, perhaps onto land without a real explanation of why they were on the boat on the first place, why they left and where they went. And while Ingrid is British, she uses a lot of Americanisms (i.e., “apartment”, “garbage can”), which is confusing as the reader tries to piece together her character.