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Ahab's Wife or, The Star-Gazer

Sena Jeter Naslund

May 2001

Synopsis

title"From the opening line--'Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last'--you will know that you are in the hands of a masterful storyteller and in the company of a fascinating woman hero. Inspired by a brief passage in Melville's Moby Dick, where Captain Ahab speaks passionately of his young wife on Nantucket, Una Spenser's moving tale is very much Naslund's own and can be enjoyed independently of its source.

The daughter of a tyrannical father, Una leaves the violent Kentucky frontier for the peace of a New England lighthouse island, where she simultaneously falls in love with two young men. Disguised as a boy, she earns a berth on a whaling ship where she encounters the power of nature, death, and madness, and gets her first glimpse of Captain Ahab. As Nalund portrays Una's love for the tragically driven Ahab, she magnificently renders a real, living marriage and offers a new perspective on the American experience. Immediately immersed in this world, the reader experiences a brilliantly written, vibrant, uplifting novel--a bright book of life." (Newsday)

Reviews

  • Ahab's Wife was selected by Time as one of the five best novels of 1999.

  • Ahab's Wife was selected by the New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of the Year and by Publisher's Weekly as one of the Best Books of 1999.

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  • "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." (Newsday)
  • "Ambitious, powerful, heartbreaking, and transcendent at once, Una Spanser's tale of a life fully lived gives us what we crave: a compelling story beautifully told. This is a great American novel." (Bret Lott, author of 'Jewel')
  • "An intense treat, powerfully written, Ahab's Wife is one of the best contemporary novels I have read in years." (Louise Erdrich)

Book Club Rating and Comments

If you or your book club has read this book and would like to share your comments, please email us at upthecreekbc@yahoo.com.

Other Books by Sena Jeter Naslund