In the early 1930s, Milman Parry introduced the revolutionary hypothesis that the Iliad and the Odyssey were not "written" as we understand it, but derived from an oral tradition going back centuries; this idea's effects are still felt in contemporary scholarship, but Parry himself has mostly disappeared from view. Now, Robert Kanigel gives us a full and vivid account of his life, explores the mystery surrounding Parry's death at 33, and describes how, in the ensuing years, what began as a way to understand the Homeric epics became the new field of "oral theory," which continues to be applied to everything from Beowulf to jazz improvisation, from the Old Testament to the latest hip-hop.