This book won't give much or any information not already known to those who have studied Milman Parry in depth. For those, however, who like me knew about his life and work on a basic level, or for those who might know nothing about this young scholar, this book is an easy, quick, and good introduction to Parry's life and work that can serve as a springboard to other sources as well. Milman Parry's thesis in late 1920's to mid-1930's, starting at the young age of 21, changed the way classical scholars thought about Homer's authorship of the Odyssey and the Iliad. Parry's research suggested first what we now know that Homer didn't write the two epics, but they were rather a compilation of oral tradition and oral performance. Until Parry, scholars believed that Homer wrote the two epics; even those who had doubts about how Odyssey and Iliad came to be, they never tried to prove otherwise. Unfortunately, Parry died very young by a shooting accident? suicide? or was it a murder? We'll probably never know. After his death, his assistant and former student Albert Lord continued Parry's work and research and other scholars followed the trail of scholarship that Parry had started. I enjoyed this book very much, but it seems that there are more than a few unnecessary repetitions throughout, and also for about the first hundred pages the focus is more on Parry's unhappy marriage and less focused on his actual research. This slowed my interest somewhat as I was looking forward to learn more about his scholarly work. Having said that, his relationship to his wife is indeed an important part in his life and it has cast a shadow over the real cause of his death. Nevertheless, later the book really picks up on Parry's journey to former Yugoslavia, his meeting with local traditional singers, his recordings, and research in an effort to prove his theory about the manner in which Odyssey and Iliad came to be. Milman brought onto the foreground the question of Homer's authorship and the significance of oral poetry and oral tradition. This is a nice, simple introduction to the life and work of this young scholar who changed the path of ancient Greek scholarship.