"The main male character, Grif Smolders is a kind of Odysseus in reverse. Hardly a hero, he struggles throughout the novel to run away from his 'Ithaca,' from his home and wife, and not toward it. He suffers a great many misadventures in the process, including shipwreck, washing up ashore, unconscious, on what might be viewed as northern version of Calypso's island, and later, is enchanted by a Circe-like family (he even travels with a pig for a time). Like Odysseus, he becomes a 'No Man,' in attempting to shirk his identity and does encounter a Cyclopean giant-to-be in the form of the newly invented film camera. This all sounds prescriptive, but isn't. I wasn't even much aware of alluding to the Odyssey while writing, but it's one of those influential books for me and it found its way in."