Author:Scott Oden
He lived in the shadow of kings. One trusted him with his empire; the other feared his every move. Memnon of Rhodes (375-333 BC) walked in the footsteps of giants. As a soldier, sailor, statesman and general, he was, in the words of Diodorus of Sicily, "outstanding in courage and strategic grasp."
A contemporary of Demosthenes and Aristotle, Memnon rose from humble origins to command the whole of western Asia in a time of strife and slaughter. To his own people, he was a traitor, to his rivals, a mercenary. But, to the King of Kings, his majesty Darius III of Persia, Memnon was the one man capable of defending Asia Minor from the rising power of the barbaric Macedonians. In a war pitting Greek against Greek, Memnon proved his quality beyond measure. His enemies fought for glory and gold; Memnon fought for something more: for loyalty, for honour, and for duty. He fought for the love of Barsine, a woman of remarkable beauty and grace, but most of all, he fought for the promise of peace.
Through the deathbed recollections of a mysterious woman, the life of Memnon unfolds with brilliant clarity. It is a record of his triumphs and tragedies, his loves and losses, and of the determination that drove him to stand against the most renowned figure of the ancient world - an ambitious and brilliant young conqueror called Alexander the Great.
A novel of urgent humanity
—— Sunday TelegraphRose Tremain does not disappoint. The Road Home is thematically rich, dealing with loss and separation, mourning and melancholia... As always her writing has a delicious, crunchy precision
—— ObserverFilled with emotional richness, complex sensibility and a passionate insistence on the humanity of the poor
—— Sunday TimesA classic work by the gifted Tremain
—— Guardian'Tremain is a magnificent story-teller'
—— Independent on sunday...bravely imaginative, deeply moving, surprising, invigorating and satisfying
—— IndependentLuminous talent for the fusion of the extraordinary and the commonplace
—— Sunday TelegraphI can't think of a better sentence-to-sentence writer of fiction
—— Irish TimesA strikingly alert and humane profile of migrant labour... wild and beautiful and full of woe
—— Sunday HeraldVivid, original and always engaging
—— The TimesThis is a humane and moving account of the migrant experience in contemporary London, full of understanding and compassion about the difficulties of alienation and belonging
—— Mail on SundayHere, as in her best work, Tremain achieves a remarkable synthesis of fully realised character and the systematic observation of a world.The Road Home is a subtle and challenging account of a story we think we know already and of a person we all too often reduce to nothing more than a political issue or a statistic.
—— Lavinia Greenlaw , Financial TimesRose Tremain is a novelist of style, ambition and lyrical sensibility...This is a generous, sweet-tempered book
—— Sunday TimesA magnificent achievement from a writer at the height of her very considerable powers
—— Daily MailRose Tremain is an old-fashioned writer, in the best of ways: we care about her characters' sorrows and hope for their happiness
—— Daily TelegraphTremain allows us to see our country's wonders and failings as if for the first time
—— GlamourThe Wodehouse wit should be registered at Police HQ as a chemical weapon
—— Kathy LetteWitty and effortlessly fluid. His books are laugh-out-loud funny
—— Arabella WeirThe funniest writer ever to put words to paper
—— Hugh LaurieThe greatest comic writer ever
—— Douglas AdamsP.G. Wodehouse wrote the best English comic novels of the century
—— Sebastian FaulksSublime comic genius
—— Ben EltonYou don't analyse such sunlit perfection, you just bask in its warmth and splendour
—— Stephen Fry
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