{"id":308935,"date":"2026-04-08T07:05:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T11:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/?p=308935"},"modified":"2026-04-07T14:36:48","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T18:36:48","slug":"9-little-odysseys-that-dont-go-very-far-and-thats-the-whole-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/9-little-odysseys-that-dont-go-very-far-and-thats-the-whole-point\/","title":{"rendered":"9 Little Odysseys That Don\u2019t Go Very Far, and That\u2019s the Whole Point"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I love a rousing epic, but I\u2019m equally drawn to smaller, more interior odysseys\u2014stories set in kitchens, in unassuming towns, or in the mind itself. Unlike larger-than-life quest narratives with a traditional (and traditionally male) protagonist, these little odysseys take place in spaces often coded as female and just as often dismissed as unimportant. But their smallness is precisely the point, and although they promise neither resolution nor reward, they offer something equally rich: friction, intimacy, insight, and a slow remaking of the self.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-full is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/269\/9798896361084\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"647\" height=\"1000\" src=\"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/9798896361084.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-308947\" style=\"width:300px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/9798896361084.jpg 647w, https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/9798896361084-194x300.jpg 194w, https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/9798896361084-600x927.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 647px) 100vw, 647px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>My book, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/269\/9798896361084\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Troika<\/a><\/em>, chronicles a three-day road trip to California\u2019s Central Coast. In the car: me, my 77-year-old mother, and my 22-year-old daughter. We drive 250 miles south to Solvang, a quaint Danish town made famous by the 2004 film <em>Sideways<\/em>, meander through the Santa Ynez Valley, stop at an ostrich farm, visit a stunning outdoor light installation in Paso Robles, bicker, binge-watch the second season of <em>The White Lotus<\/em>, and embark on a quest for the best latte art. It\u2019s a modest journey\u2014three women, three days, an unambitious itinerary\u2014but along the way, <em>Troika<\/em> explores the complicated interior landscapes of myth, migration, and memory, braiding together echoes of the <em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/269\/9780393356250\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Odyssey<\/a><\/em>, a legacy of loss, and a family history of fleeing from monsters, both real and imagined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The nine books on this list undertake similarly circumscribed journeys: across a parlor, through a single unruly sentence, back into a childhood bedroom. Their protagonists are daughters, mothers, wives, caretakers, and strivers\u2014women who struggle with the weight of inheritance and expectation, confront and name their own desires, and navigate uncharted interior terrain. But even when hemmed in by economic exigency, physical disability, or cultural constraints, these protagonists show us that nothing is more heroic than a consciousness finding a way forward on its own terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<script src=https:\/\/bookshop.org\/widgets.js data-type=\"featured\" data-full-info=\"true\" data-affiliate-id=\"269\" data-sku=\"9781771963077\"><\/script>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/269\/9781771963077\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Ducks, Newburyport<\/a> <\/em>by Lucy Ellmann<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Over the course of a single, breathless, looping sentence that runs for a thousand pages, the unnamed narrator muses about her failed first marriage, her happy second marriage, her four children, her health, her health insurance, money, her part-time job baking pies, her earlier job as an untenured history professor, the sites of Native American massacres near the small Ohio town where she lives with her family, GRWM routines, climate change, internet headlines, and the thrumming violence just beneath the surface of American life. We may not know her name, but she contains multitudes, and by the end of the novel, she feels like a close friend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<script src=https:\/\/bookshop.org\/widgets.js data-type=\"featured\" data-full-info=\"true\" data-affiliate-id=\"269\" data-sku=\"9780141441368\"><\/script>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/269\/9780141441368\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Washington Square<\/a><\/em> by Henry James<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Catherine Sloper\u2019s beautiful, clever mother died in childbirth, and Catherine\u2014who grows up to be neither clever nor beautiful\u2014is left in the care of her meddlesome older aunt and her exacting, acerbic father, a well-regarded doctor who believes that \u201cyou are good for nothing if you aren\u2019t clever.\u201d What\u2019s a girl to do, especially if she\u2019s stuck in her father\u2019s house with no marriage prospects? If you\u2019re Catherine, you endure a broken heart, quietly defy your controlling father, take up needlepoint, find your backbone and your voice, and realize that your small-seeming life may not be so small after all\u2014especially if you live it on your terms&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<script src=https:\/\/bookshop.org\/widgets.js data-type=\"featured\" data-full-info=\"true\" data-affiliate-id=\"269\" data-sku=\"9780593834480\"><\/script>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/269\/9780593834480\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Scavengers<\/a><\/em> by Kathleen Boland<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>A mother and daughter embark on a treasure hunt in the Utah desert. They are carrying an unreliable map, a lifetime of resentments and regrets, and not enough sunscreen. The mother, Christy, is erratic and irresponsible; the daughter, Bea (short for Beautiful), seeks order in numbers and weather patterns. Their search for treasure loops and meanders, but much of the narrative drama takes place in the cramped spaces of memory, text exchanges, and snatches of conversation. A fraught, uneasy tenderness slowly builds between the two women as they chart an unexpected path back to each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<script src=https:\/\/bookshop.org\/widgets.js data-type=\"featured\" data-full-info=\"true\" data-affiliate-id=\"269\" data-sku=\"9781250182555\"><\/script>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/269\/9781250182555\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Goodbye, Vitamin<\/a><\/em> by Rachel Khong<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Ruth\u2019s fianc\u00e9 has dumped her for another woman (\u201cI loosened the jar lid,\u201d she notes, \u201cso someone else could open him\u201d). Her father, who has Alzheimer\u2019s, is flinging his pants and shirts into trees. Ruth returns to her childhood home, where she cooks cruciferous vegetables (her father calls them \u201ccrucified vegetables\u201d) and jellyfish, which are supposed to stave off cognitive decline, accompanies her parents on walks to the park, and searches for projects that spark her father\u2019s interest. The novel\u2019s modest scale\u2014meals prepared, notes left on the refrigerator, snatches of dialogue overheard in the street\u2014belies its immense affection, wry hilarity, and attentive intelligence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<script src=https:\/\/bookshop.org\/widgets.js data-type=\"featured\" data-full-info=\"true\" data-affiliate-id=\"269\" data-sku=\"9780807017333\"><\/script>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/269\/9780807017333\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">A Cup of Water Under My Bed<\/a><\/em> by Daisy Hern\u00e1ndez<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Daisy Hern\u00e1ndez is five when she begins learning English\u2014a language that sounds like \u201cmarbles in the mouth\u201d\u2014and for years afterward, the hurt of being the first to leave her Cuban-Colombian family for another language lingers. Her fluency puts her at a remove from the people she loves most; so does identifying as bisexual and speaking out in a culture that traditionally values stoicism and silence. But no matter how far she ventures, writing allows her to remain close to home; writing, she says, \u201cis how I leave my family and how I take them with me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<script src=https:\/\/bookshop.org\/widgets.js data-type=\"featured\" data-full-info=\"true\" data-affiliate-id=\"269\" data-sku=\"9780593190272\"><\/script>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/269\/9780593190272\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">All Fours<\/a><\/em> by Miranda July<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>A self-described semi-famous artist sets out on a cross-country drive, but 20 minutes into her trip, she checks into a small-town motel. There, she spends an exorbitant amount of money redecorating the motel room, engages in an unconsummated affair, and dreads the \u201cestrogen cliff\u201d that will send her hurtling into the jaws of menopause. The novel is polarizing\u2014readers have dismissed the protagonist as self-indulgent and unlikable and cringed at her no-holds-barred frankness\u2014but I was brought to tears by her fearless willingness to explore the darkest recesses of her psyche and the rich intimacy of female friendships that undergird the novel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<script src=https:\/\/bookshop.org\/widgets.js data-type=\"featured\" data-full-info=\"true\" data-affiliate-id=\"269\" data-sku=\"9781786892485\"><\/script>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/269\/9781786892485\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>The Penelopiad<\/em><\/a> by Margaret Atwood<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Odysseus\u2019s loyal wife, Penelope, spends most of <em>The Odyssey<\/em> weaving, waiting, and weeping. Now that she\u2019s dead, she\u2019s ready to drop some truth bombs from the underworld. She is no longer willing to bite her tongue, to keep the right doors closed and go to sleep during the rampages. She\u2019s sardonic and angry. She regrets not standing up for the maids Odysseus and Telemachus slaughtered when Odysseus returned to Ithaca, but it\u2019s too late; their voices haunt her story, for the maids understand better than anyone the steep cost of keeping the home fires burning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<script src=https:\/\/bookshop.org\/widgets.js data-type=\"featured\" data-full-info=\"true\" data-affiliate-id=\"269\" data-sku=\"9781101912195\"><\/script>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/269\/9781101912195\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">We Are Never Meeting in Real Life.<\/a><\/em> by Samantha Irby<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Why go outside when you can hang out in your apartment with the internet, the TV, and your garbagemonster cat? Samantha Irby sees no reason for it. Her bowels are irritable, her arthritis is flaring, the dating scene is \u201cfucking dire,\u201d and her job skills are limited to\u2014in her words\u2014surly phone answering, playing the race card, and eating other people\u2019s lunches in the break room. Also, her mind is a \u201cnever-ending series of shame spirals\u201d leavened with depression and anxiety, which is why she\u2019s staying home in her day pajamas, eating the snacks she ordered online, and spinning the dross of daily life into gold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<script src=https:\/\/bookshop.org\/widgets.js data-type=\"featured\" data-full-info=\"true\" data-affiliate-id=\"269\" data-sku=\"9780399573262\"><\/script>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/269\/9780399573262\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Priestdaddy<\/a><\/em> by Patricia Lockwood<\/h4>\n\n\n<aside class=\"related-content-block alignright no-title\">\n    \t\t\t\t\t<article class=\"post-box\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/a-mother-daughter-novel-that-transforms-the-western\/\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"post-box-info\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<h2>A Mother-Daughter Novel That Transforms the Western<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\t<!-- <p>Kathleen Boland\u2019s \u201cScavengers\u201d is a madcap adventure probing questions of reinvention, the wilderness, and the stories we tell ourselves<\/p> -->\n<!-- temp without tags -->\n\t\t\t\t\t<p>Kathleen Boland\u2019s \u201cScavengers\u201d is a madcap adventure probing questions of reinvention, the wilderness, and the stories we tell ourselves<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"post-box-lower\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\tJan 13\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t&#8211; <span>Mary Pappalardo<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"post-box-image\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"post-box-category\">interviews\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<!-- blah -->\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" src=\"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/shiva-prasad-gaddameedi-YPVO7_yDqIc-unsplash-768x512.jpg\" class=\"attachment-medium_large size-medium_large wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/shiva-prasad-gaddameedi-YPVO7_yDqIc-unsplash-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/shiva-prasad-gaddameedi-YPVO7_yDqIc-unsplash-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/shiva-prasad-gaddameedi-YPVO7_yDqIc-unsplash-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/shiva-prasad-gaddameedi-YPVO7_yDqIc-unsplash-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/shiva-prasad-gaddameedi-YPVO7_yDqIc-unsplash-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/shiva-prasad-gaddameedi-YPVO7_yDqIc-unsplash-600x400.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/article>\n\n\t<\/aside>\n\n\n\n<p>Imagine your father (who, incidentally, spent your college tuition on a guitar that once belonged to Paul McCartney) is one of a handful of non-celibate Roman Catholic priests in the world. You are nothing like him. You write poetry. On the internet, which has just become a thing, you meet another poet in a poetry chat room, and the two of you marry (at 19!)) and move to Savannah. You\u2019re poor and happy, until a catastrophe forces you and your husband to move back into your father\u2019s house, which in this case also happens to be the house of God. Lockwood\u2019s main instrument of resistance\u2014her profane, poetic, loose-limbed, exquisitely unhinged voice\u2014punctures the domestic claustrophobia and creates its own sacred spaces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I love a rousing epic, but I\u2019m equally drawn to smaller, more interior odysseys\u2014stories set in kitchens, in unassuming towns, or in the mind itself. Unlike larger-than-life quest narratives with a traditional (and traditionally male) protagonist, these little odysseys take place in spaces often coded as female and just as often dismissed as unimportant. But [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1807,"featured_media":308959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5647],"tags":[178,240,48,6219],"class_list":["post-308935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reading-list","tag-family","tag-memoir","tag-travel","tag-women"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>9 Little Odysseys That Don\u2019t Go Very Far, and That\u2019s the Whole Point - Electric Literature<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"These small, interior journeys are rich in friction, intimacy, and insight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/9-little-odysseys-that-dont-go-very-far-and-thats-the-whole-point\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"9 Little Odysseys That Don\u2019t Go Very Far, and That\u2019s the Whole Point - Electric Literature\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"These small, interior journeys are rich in friction, intimacy, and insight\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/9-little-odysseys-that-dont-go-very-far-and-thats-the-whole-point\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Electric Literature\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" 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