Telemachus (TMAC) re-examines James Joyce’s Ulysses and the Odysseus myth from the Point of View of the son. It is set in Sydney, Australia on Melbourne Cup Day 1984 and follows a day in the life of two brothers, Tom Hallem and Billy Capri, underscored by the looming return of their father after 20 years in Asia.

The governing trope of TMAC is that “the (subscripted) _son must repeat the journey of the (superscripted & emboldened) ^father .”

Telemachus is Technical Fiction that gives equal weight to story and theory. It employs a postmodern method that “puts forward the unpresentable in presentation itself,” as Jean-Francois Lyotard wrote, to thereby deny itself “the solace of good forms.” This means it is designed to challenge the reader as it shifts between plot, self-disclosure and technical analysis.

Telemachus is the son of Ulysses, just as Telemachus was the son of Odysseus. It contains a wealth of information about Joyce, his works and literary correspondences. In fact, it could almost be called “Ulysses” for Dummies!

Yet encased within all the Joyce-related matter and literary theory, there is a ripping yarn about family, lies, choices, death and aftermath.

The text of Telemachus is fixed. But on this website, everything is provisional. It will be continuously updated to enlarge and refract the content of the novel. The website will thus become a living digital complement to the dead written testament.

Telemachus is a DIY publication available free on this website in PDF, e-book and Online formats. You can also order hard copy of Telemachus here.