From the prize-winning author of Supper Club comes a wickedly funny and slyly poignant new satire on modern life - for fans of My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Convenience Store Woman, and J. G. Ballard's High Rise

'This book is a serious vibe' Cosmopolitan

'Lara Williams is the queen of smart modern satire. I could read her all day' Emma Jane Unsworth

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.

Until one day she is selected for the employee mentorship scheme - an initiative run by the ship's mysterious captain and self-anointed lifestyle guru, Keith, who pushes Ingrid further than she thought possible. But sooner or later, she will have to ask herself: how far is too far?

Utterly original, mischievous and thought-provoking, The Odyssey is a merciless takedown of consumer capitalism and our anxious, ill-fated quests for something to believe in. And as its title suggests, it is a voyage that will eventually lead its unlikely heroine all the way home. Though she'd do almost anything to avoid getting there...

About the Author
Lara Williams is the author of Treats, Supper Club and The Odyssey. Her fiction has won the Guardian 'Not the Booker' Prize and been nominated for the BBC National Short Story Award, the Republic of Consciousness Prize, the Edinburgh First Book Award, the Saboteur Awards and the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. Lara Williams lives in Manchester and is a contributor to the Guardian, Independent, Times Literary Supplement, Vice, Dazed and others.

Reviews
Slyly poignant and wickedly funny... A serious vibe * Cosmopolitan *
Readers who enjoy Melissa Broder and Ottessa Moshfegh will appreciate this surreal trip through a troubled woman's psyche * Booklist *
Lara Williams is the queen of smart modern satire. I could read her all day -- Emma Jane Unsworth, author of 'Adults'
Williams succeeds in satirising the seemingly unmockable: the overwhelming absurdities of modern life... * Literary Review *
I have never read anything like this... Deliciously unpredictable -- Mateo Askaripour, author of 'Black Buck'
Equal parts satire and elegy, coming from the very edge of the abyss... Unsettling, risk-taking, profoundly moving - I loved it -- Livia Franchini, author of 'Shelf Life'
Astonishing, subversive and darkly funny - another dazzler of a novel from Lara Williams -- Zeba Talkhani, author of 'My Past is a Foreign Country'
Mischievous and thought-provoking * Sheerluxe *
Slyly humorous, sharp, courageous and at times devastating... The Odyssey is a wildly original satire -- Frances Cha, author of 'If I Had Your Face'



Book Information
ISBN 9780241991657
Author Lara Williams
Format Paperback
Page Count 208
Imprint Penguin Books Ltd
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Weight(grams) 151g
Dimensions(mm) 197mm * 128mm * 12mm