Ahab's Wife (84 page)

Authors: Sena Jeter Naslund

BOOK: Ahab's Wife

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Praise for Sena Jeter Naslund's
Ahab's Wife or, The Star-Gazer

“Naslund has quilted a life for her heroine that meticulously stitches together many of the important issues of the period, including slavery, women's rights, and the crisis of religious belief.”

âNewsday

“Ambitious, powerful, heartbreaking, and transcendent at once, Una Spenser's tale of a life fully lived gives us what we crave: a compelling story beautifully told. This is a great American novel.”

âB
RET
L
OTT
, author of
Jewel

“An intense treat, powerfully written,
Ahab's Wife
is one of the best contemporary novels I have read in years.”

âB
OUISE
E
RDRICH

“A deliciously old-fashioned bildungsroman, adventure story, and romanceâ¦with a suspenseful, affecting, historically accurate, and seductive narrativeâ¦Una is an enchanting protagonist: intellectually curious, sensitive, imaginative, and kindâ¦. A splendid novel that amply fulfills its ambitious purpose, offering a sweeping yet intimate picture of a remarkable woman who both typifies and transcends her times.”

â
Publishers Weekly
(starred review)

“Naslund has taken less than a paragraph's worth of references to the captain's young wife from Herman Melville's
Moby-Dick
and fashioned from this slender rib not only a woman but an entire worldâ¦. That Naslund is unstintingly reasonable, empathetic and kind should not, however, blind one to the fact that she is, in the most non-aggressive way, rewriting American history, revising American literature and critiquing traditional masculinityâ¦. Her Una is a deep and wayward creature, undaunted by convention, whose descriptions are dense with a languid and sensual interest in the world.”

â
New York Times Book Review

“Beautifully writtenâ¦Naslund's novel is filled with rich and original writing, from an author who has chartered new waters for women's characters in fiction.
Ahab's Wife
is a wondrous accomplishment.”

â
Seattle Times

“A grand romanceâ¦richâ¦lush.”

â
Boston Globe

“What really brings
Ahab's Wife
to life are the intensely realized charactersâ¦Captain Ahab himself is one of Naslund's best creations. Una too is brilliantly conceivedâ¦a powerful tale that steps to one side of Melville's fatalistic epic and offers us a lyrical gaze at fictional events that make up an American classic.”

â
Houston Chronicle

“This book is packed with heartbreaking struggle and richly imagined charactersâ¦. Naslund hasn't just written a female version of
Moby-Dick
: she creates a world of complex characters learning to interact compassionately with each other in the face of nature's recalcitrance and their own.”

â
Christian Science Monitor

“Richly realizedâ¦. Never less than engrossing.”

â
Wall Street Journal

“What Naslund has accomplished in
Ahab's Wife
is nothing short of an epic. The novel soars, but is grounded by the details that make it so compelling and utterly readableâ¦. By investing her with a burning curiosity, an admirable intellect and an essential goodness, Naslund has made Una an unforgettable heroine, worthy of Melville's legacy, but able to stand alone in her own rightâ¦
Ahab's Wife
is a brilliant novel and complex and uplifting read.”

â
Chattanooga Times

“Naslund pulls off a literary
tour de force
with
Ahab's Wife
.”

â
Miami Herald

“Peopled with a rich array of fictional, mythic, and historical characters, this ambitious novel is a kind of Technicolor dream quilt that turns
Moby-Dick
inside out and stitches it back togetherâ¦. Harrowing, poignant, and comical by turns,
Ahab's Wife
is an audacious romp through mid-nineteenth-century New England history that is amply informed by both scholarship and imagination.”

âL
AURIE
R
OBERTSON
-L
ORANT,
author of
Melville: A Biography

“An exhilarating novelâ¦Naslundhas created a heroine who will charm modern-readersâ¦. The story is relentlessly romantic, an enchanting companion to tuck into bed withâ¦
Ahab's Wife
is an exceptional feat, both faithful to the original and capable of standing on its own.”

â
Oregonian

“The year's single most absorbing reading adventure.”

â
Raleigh News & Observer

“[
Ahab's Wife
] is a beautifully written and very moving tale that is difficult to put down. Like Melville's book,
Ahab's Wife
demonstrates an intimate knowledge of both the sea and the human heart.”

â
Baltimore Sun

“Following in the footsteps of a literary giant is an ambitious undertaking, but it's one that Naslund pulls off here with aplomb. Told in lyrical prose and laced with astute observations about human nature, Una's story is engrossing, and she is a remarkably compelling and admirable figure.”

â
Denver Post

“Atmospheric and ardent, with plenty of period detail and literary beauty,
Ahab's Wife
is a sweeping success.”

â
Porstmouth Herald
(N.H.)

About the Author

Sena Jeter Naslund is a native of Birmingham and winner of the Harper Lee Award. She is Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Louisville; program director of the Spalding University brief-residency MFA in writing; and 2003 Vacca Professor at the University of Montevallo, Alabama. Her published works are
Four Spirits; Ahab's Wife or, The Star-Gazer; The Disobedience of Water; Sherlock in Love; The Animal Way to Love;
and
Ice Skating at the North Pole.

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

By Sena Jeter Naslund

Four Spirits*

Ahab's Wife or, The Star-Gazer*

The Disobedience of Water

Sherlock in Love

The Animal Way to Love

Ice Skating at the North Pole

*Available from HarperCollins e-books

Credits

Cover design by Richard Aquan

Cover photograph: Reflection upon a Wreck at 'Sconset, Nantucket, Mass., by Baldwin Coolidge; courtesy Peabody Essex Museum

Copyright

A hardcover edition of this book was published in 1999 by William Morrow and Company, Inc.

AHAB'S WIFE.
C
OPYRIGHT
Â© 1999
BY
S
ENA
J
ETER
N
ASLUND.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Â© Edition JUNE 2003 ISBN: 9780061983696

First Perennial edition published 2000.

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