Details
Synopsis
This meticulously researched historical novel, based on an obscure reference in MOBY-DICK to Ahab's wife, is the story of Una Spenser, who runs away to sea disguised as a boy, survives the wreck of a whale ship, and marries a handsome older man named Ahab before he becomes destroyed by his obsession with the white whale.
| Size | | Height: | 8.0 in | | Width: | 5.3 in | | Thickness: | 1.1 in | | Weight: | 20.0 oz |
Publisher's Notes
First Line: "Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last."
Industry Reviews
"That Naslund is unstintingly reasonable, empathetic and kind should not, however, blind one to the fact that she is, in the most nonaggressive way, rewriting American history, revising American literature and critiquing traditional masculinity....The book insists on happiness, sometimes to the exclusion of even the most generous reading of history. But why not? Men have got rich from their big harpoons and mythic beasts and improbable heroics. Don't women deserve their own fantastic voyages?"
D'erasmo
"Surprisingly absorbing, if occasionally hackneyed, the book somehow makes an art out of hokeyness."
Friedman
"Naslund sustains a high, lyrical visionary style for almost 700 pages that owes very little to her inspiration, MOBY-DICK. Without the relief and benefit of a little irony or even some low comedy, she goes on and on, her perspective getting wider and her figurative language getting more and more elegant and expressive....All in all, though it doesn't work especially well as a novel, AHAB'S WIFE works wonderfully as a gloss upon 19th century American intellectual history and an evocation of seascapes and landscapes: Naslund clearly knows the period. In addition, the volume is beautifully produced, with lovely woodcuts illustrating many of the scenes."
Smiley
"AHAB'S WIFE may appeal most to bookbuyers who know the phrase 'Call me Ishmael' but are certain they would be bored by MOBY-DICK. The broader market also includes those who have heard the names of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, [and] Frederick Douglass..., and will be delighted to see them fictionalized in unguarded moments. For anyone who has read these authors, such moments tend to be embarrassing...."
Parker
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