The Passages of Herman Melville
Jay Parini
Available as Paperback
The story of an American literary giant’s extraordinary life from the author of The Last Station
Herman had often walked these streets, eyeing the forest of tall ships, their blackened strakes handsomely curved, masts like crosses, empty of sails …
1841. A young Herman Melville is yet to write Moby Dick. He sets out on a voyage aboard a whaling ship. What happens on that trip will give him enough material for a lifetime of writing.
But what of the dark things Melville encounters on his journey, and the illicit relationships he embarks upon that are to torment him once he returns home to his wife Lizzie? All is revealed as Jay Parini lifts the lid on one of the greatest writers of the nineteenth century …
“This novel powerfully conveys the allure of the sea, and of the ships that do battle with its creatures. And Parini’s evocation of Melville’s relationships is moving… In his dealings with his wife, his friend Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the young men who people his story, he becomes a tragic figure, finally rendered heroic by his capacity to feel.”
observer
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“Parini’s eminently readable narrative convincingly fills in hitherto dark places. [This novel] will not replace the standard biographies; it will, however, add flesh to their bones.”
John Sutherland
financial Times
“[A] compelling novel…What is most rewarding about this richly detailed book is Parini’s ability to frame a story of heroic faiure with the knowedge that its subject will one day triumph.”
Stephen Amidon
sunday Times
“Parini’s novel is a bravura and often engrossing attempt to blend the disparate strands of Melville’s art and life in two perspectives.”
Philip Hoare
guardian
“A thrilling tale… [Parini] has the knack for finding just the right phrase. … There is much to admire in this novel.”
independent On Sunday
Jay Parini
Jay Parini is Axinn Professor of English at Middlebury College, Vermont. His six novels also include Benjamins Crossing and The Apprentice Lover. His volumes of poetry include The Art of Subtraction: New and Selected Poems. In addition to biographies of John Steinbeck, Robert Frost and William Faulkner, he has written a volume of essays on literature and politics, as well as The Art of Teaching. He edited the Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature and writes regularly for the Guardian and other publications.