"A passionate love story and a gripping portrait of an artist
wrestling with himself on the cusp of his greatest achievement." --
Madeline Miller, author of The Song of Achilles
A rich and captivating novel set amid the witty, high-spirited literary
society of 1850s New England, offering a new window on Herman Melville's
emotionally charged relationship with Nathaniel Hawthorne and how it
transformed his masterpiece, Moby-Dick
In the summer of 1850, Herman Melville finds himself hounded by
creditors and afraid his writing career might be coming to an end--his
last three novels have been commercial failures and the critics have
turned against him. In despair, Melville takes his family for a vacation
to his cousin's farm in the Berkshires, where he meets Nathaniel
Hawthorne at a picnic--and his life turns upside down.
The Whale chronicles the fervent love affair that grows out of that
serendipitous afternoon. Already in debt, Melville recklessly borrows
money to purchase a local farm in order to remain near Hawthorne, his
newfound muse. The two develop a deep connection marked by tensions and
estrangements, and feelings both shared and suppressed.
Melville dedicated Moby-Dick to Hawthorne, and Mark Beauregard's novel
fills in the story behind that dedication with historical accuracy and
exquisite emotional precision, reflecting his nuanced reading of the
real letters and journals of Melville, Hawthorne, Oliver Wendell Holmes,
and others. An exuberant tale of longing and passion, The Whale
captures not only a transformative relationship--long the subject of
speculation--between two of our most enduring authors, but also their
exhilarating moment in history, when a community of high-spirited and
ambitious writers was creating truly American literature for the first
time.
