Book description
'Deep, deep, and still deep and deeper must we go, if we would find out
the heart of a man . . .' Descend into the dark waters of the soul of
one of the greatest writers America has ever produced. In this stirring
novel, Jay Parini recreates the adventure-filled life and ignominious
death of Herman Melville. Partly told from the perspective of his wife,
Lizzie, the story opens with an aging, angry and drunken Melville
wreaking domestic havoc in his unhappy New York home. From there it
takes in the full span of a life that produced Moby-Dick and Billy Budd:
shipping off to sea on a merchant vessel as an impoverished young
aristocrat, a fateful voyage on a whaling ship, desertion in the
Marquesas Islands and a sojourn with cannibals, instant fame as a
novelist, and the disappointments of his twilight years trudging the
docks as a Customs Inspector. Along the way Parini navigates the torrid
personal relationships and barely suppressed desires that defined
Melville's life. Jay Parini creates a Melville who is at once
sympathetic and maddening. His novel pays tribute to the great works of
the nineteenth century, and delivers a gripping historical drama.
