The book begins with the impulsive departure of Nausicaa’s eldest brother, the prince Laodamas, on a quest to find an amber necklace for his shrewish wife Ctimene. When his extended absence becomes a matter for concern, Nausicaa’s father the king sets out to find his son, relying on the rumours and hearsay gleaned from the ships which come into port. Now, with both the king and crown prince absent, the noblemen of Drepanum see a way to seize power for themselves. They plot to ensure, one way or the other, that the king will never return, and then decide that it’s time to make one of themselves the new king. They congregate at the palace and announce that they will stay there, eating and drinking at the king’s expense, until Nausicaa has chosen one of them for her husband.

Naturally, Nausicaa can see exactly what’s going on and has no intention of marrying any one of these vultures. But how can a young girl protect her palace and her family, when the only ones she can rely on are her adolescent brother Clytoneus and their maternal uncle Mentor? Then, one day, while Nausicaa and her women are washing clothes at the beach, she encounters a lone, bedraggled man, the survivor of a shipwreck, who clasps her knees and makes himself her suppliant; and Nausicaa realises that the instrument of her vengeance is to hand.

The story is not actually that of the Odyssey: it tells of the events which then inspire Nausicaa to sit down and compose her epic, so although you’ll find plenty of familiar allusions and motifs, you’ll be disappointed if you come to this looking for Odysseus himself. This is the story of what happens at home while the heroes are off on their adventures. Graves tries to come up with an explanation for the fusion of various different myth-cycles within the one epic poem, suggesting that the story of Odysseus’s return has been developed from references in the Iliad and fleshed out with the adventures of the hero Ulysses, whom he suggests was originally an entirely different mythological figure to Odysseus, but whose travels around a series of magical islands was adopted for the epic. Then Graves points to the myths of Sicilian origin which appear in the poem, most notably the Cyclops Polyphemus in his cave on Etna. I have to admit that the story is actually weighed down a bit too much by all this mythological speculation and by the sheer profusion of names, histories and myth-cycles that Graves references. He was of course one of the great mythographers and at times it feels a tiny bit as if he’s showing off. Nevertheless I’ve learned a bit more about classical Sicily: the Sicans and Sicels both feature and you get a real sense of the melting-pot of cultures mingling in this one small area. I would have dearly loved a glossary of names at the back to remind me who everyone was, but unfortunately that’s another feature the book lacks.

Despite the interesting ideas that power it, Homer’s Daughter never really comes to life and it’s a shame because Nausicaa is one of the most resourceful and independent female characters I’ve come across in classical historical fiction; if only she were given a bit more space to breathe! And yet it’s difficult to escape the feeling that she is an academic theory in action, rather than someone whom the author has created as a living, breathing person (the same goes for the other characters in the book). Graves’s idea was clever, if not absolutely convincing, but on occasion he gets too far into Golden Bough territory for this to be a genuinely absorbing story.

It’s almost as if he would have preferred to write a thesis on the subject but, knowing the difficulties of providing proof, decided to couch it as fiction instead to give himself more leeway. The result is a strangely stilted little book. It’s one for completists, Odyssey enthusiasts and those who are interested in how myths come to be formed from the myths of an earlier age; but perhaps isn’t something you need to read if you’re just looking for an absorbing piece of classical-era historical fiction. (For that, go to I, Claudius; or Mary Renault.)

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