In the epic 'Son of Nobody,' Yann Martel gives footnotes a starring role

NPR's Book of the Day

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Arts, Books

4.2 • 671 Ratings

🗓️ 1 April 2026

⏱️ 8 minutes

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Summary

Yann Martel’s new novel Son of Nobody contains two narratives: a lost epic about the Trojan War and a personal tragedy that plays out in the book’s footnotes. The two protagonists are Psoas, a common Greek foot soldier, and Harlow Donne, a graduate student who discovers Psoas’ story by chance. In today’s episode, Martel joins NPR’s Scott Simon for a conversation about the author’s decision to give footnotes a “starring role” in the novel and whether war gives his characters a sense of purpose.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Tim Benairmias. There's something special about books with footnotes.
0:09.8	I'm thinking about works like Juno Diaz's The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wow, or David Foster Wallace's Consider the Lobster.
0:18.2	In those books, footnotes aren't really for reference, but rather are part of the
0:23.5	narrative itself. Enter son of nobody, a new novel by Jan Martel. It uses footnotes to tell
0:31.6	two stories that are distinct but linked. The book of prize-winning writer spoke about it with
0:37.2	weekend edition host Scott Simon.
0:39.9	How does a certain life become an epic? Jan Martel's new novel, Son of Nobody, centers around
0:46.3	the scholarly efforts and family life of Harlow Dunn. He's a Canadian classicist who comes
0:53.3	across a pottery charred that leads him to a lost epic tale of the Trojan War.
0:59.1	But unlike many epics, it's not about a king or a demigod.
1:02.4	It's about a commoner.
1:05.0	So as of Midas.
1:06.7	If I could ask you to read, Mr. Martel.
1:09.8	Prologue.
1:14.8	Mews. Have you forgotten him? So as was his name.
1:19.3	"'Is he to stay in the gloom of Hades, never more to see the honey light of the world?
1:22.2	"'What did he do to deserve this chill fate?
1:26.3	"'Let me sing his song. Then we'll see where he should stay,
1:28.1	"'whether in the soaring cave called the mortal mouth,, whence a flutter of the tongue will give him glory, or in that dank, dark place,
1:33.7	silent and bone-chilling, where unhappy creatures move about like shadows. So, as I say,
1:39.7	was his name, and he was my friend. And Jan Martel, author of the worldwide bestseller in Booker Prize-winning novel, Life of Pie,
1:48.2	joins us from the studios of the CBC in Saskatoon.
	...

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