“Jeffrey Ford is one of the few writers who uses wonder instead of ink in his pen.” – Jonathan CarrollA bold and intriguing fabulist novel that reimagines two of the most legendary characters in American literature—Captain Ahab and Ishmael of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick—from the critically acclaimed Edgar and World Fantasy award-winning author of The Girl in the Glass and The Shadow Year.At the … in the Glass and The Shadow Year.
At the end of a long journey, Captain Ahab returns to the mainland to confront the true author of the novel Moby-Dick, his former shipmate, Ishmael. For Ahab was not pulled into the ocean’s depths by a harpoon line, and the greatly exaggerated rumors of his untimely death have caused him grievous harm—after hearing about Ahab’s demise, his wife and child left Nantucket for New York, and now Ahab is on a desperate quest to find them.
Ahab’s pursuit leads him to The Gorgon’s Mirror, the sensationalist tabloid newspaper that employed Ishmael as a copy editor while he wrote the harrowing story of the ill-fated Pequod. In the penny press’s office, Ahab meets George Harrow, who makes a deal with the captain: the newspaperman will help Ahab navigate the city in exchange for the exclusive story of his salvation from the mouth of the great white whale. But their investigation—like Ahab’s own story—will take unexpected, dangerous, and ultimately tragic turns.
Told with wisdom, suspense, a modicum of dry humor and horror, and a vigorous stretching of the truth, Ahab’s Return charts an inventive and intriguing voyage involving one of the most memorable characters in classic literature, and pays homage to one of the greatest novels ever written.
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The premise is simple: what if Ahab didn’t die at the end of Moby DIck? What happened then? Jeffrey Ford takes you through a world of penny dreadfuls, terror and magic that is all his own.
NYC – Winter, 1853:
George Harrow is working late at the offices of The Gorgon’s Mirror, the penny press for which he writes. He’s trying to come up with ideas to confabulate a story to meet deadline.
The door opens and in walks a tall, scraggly man with a whalebone leg.
Captain Ahab is alive!
The captain is looking for Ishmael, a former shipmate and the author of “Moby Dick”. Ish had been the copy editor of the Mirror whilst writing the book. He no longer works there.
While talking to Ahab, George discovers that the captain is also searching for his wife and son. They had moved from Nantucket to New York after learning that the captain and crew had died during the hunt with the great white whale.
This from the book that now seems to have been written with a certain amount of license.
Sensing a story (or stories), Mr. Harrow suggests that he might be of help, along with the newspaper’s backing, to the captain. Since Ahab has no resources and doesn’t know the area.
What follows is an adventure saga on a grand scale.
Their journey will take them through the streets of mid-19th century New York. The city is wonderfully rendered in these pages.
They will meet many interesting characters. Venture to the Five Points area, made infamous by Martin Scorcese’s film, where they meet a treacherous gang leader and his nefarious crew of henchman.
Brimming with violence, danger, mystery, mysticality, suspense, love and true-to-the-period writing, “Ahab’s Back” is an extraordinary fable from a highly gifted author.
Hugely recommend to EVERYONE! : ) (less)
Ahab’s back, looking for his wife and son.
Yes, that Ahab, the crazed captain who went down with the White Whale.
He miraculously survived and has finally made his way home. He turns up at the Gorgon’s Mirror, a New York City tabloid newspaper, looking for Ishmael, the writer who killed Ahab off in his novelization of their adventures. Ishmael is gone but hack writer Harrow sees dollar signs behind Ahab’s improbable story.
All Ahab wants now is to find his beautiful wife and teenage son.
Harrow gets his boss to fund the quest and he and Ahab go on an adventure into the heart of New York City’s Five Points, encountering a drug cartel protected by juvenile addicts and the manticore, a mythological creature (pictured on the book cover). They are joined by Ahab’s harpooner Madi, stylized as Daggoo by Ishmael, the staunch street urchin Marvis, and a patchwork-coat wearing female writer and opium-eater, Arabella.
Harrow is in over his head, plunged into a world of ghoulish murders perpetrated by Malbaster and attacked by his zombie-like creature Bartleby. Harrow admits that, in a gunfight, he is as “useless as Millard Fillmore.” Luckily, he has the African Madi and the plucky women to protect him.
Ahab’s Return by Jeffry Ford reminded me of Terry Pratchett’s Dodger, a fun blend of fantasy and literary personages in a historical fantasy. And also Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next novels in which literary characters exist in an alternative world.
John Jacob Aster’s opium shipping empire, a forgotten multi-racial and multi-cultural village torn down to make Central Park, the Know Nothing anti-immigrant nativist movement, all figure into the story.
The plot hinges on an interesting concept of fictioneers writing plotlines that become reality.
“I am a devotee of the works of Emerson and believe he’s professing that the mind is a reailty engine–it creates reality or at least in some part it helps to create reality.” Arabella in Ahab’s Return
I enjoyed the novel as great escapist fun. I received a free book from the publisher through a LibraryThing giveaway.