This is totally one of those hidden-from-history books. Fran Ross was an experimental fiction writer who also wrote material for Richard Pryor. This book hangs its narrative on the Theseus story, and is a satire maybe? definitely uses pastiche. Oreo, the kid of a Jewish father and an African American mother, is raised by her grandparents and then goes to find her father, which is the quest. The copy I have has an introduction by Harryette Mullen, which totally worth reading.