Call Me Ishmaelle
Moby Dick reimagined from the perspective of a cross-dressing female sailor
-
- $14.99
Publisher Description
Call Me Ishmaelle reimagines the epic battle between man and nature in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick from a female perspective.
'Brilliantly written... ambitious, brave, strange' Philip Hoare
‘A clever and original skewering of a classic’ i
1843. Ishmaelle is born in a small village on the stormy Kent coast where she grows up swimming with dolphins. After her parents and infant sister die, her brother, Joseph, leaves to find work as a sailor. Abandoned and desperate for a life at sea, Ishmaelle disguises herself as a cabin boy and travels to New York.
As the American Civil War breaks out in 1861, Ishmaelle boards the Nimrod, a whaling ship led by the obsessive Captain Seneca, a Black free man of heroic stature who is haunted by a tragic past. Here, she finds protectors in Polynesian harpooner, Kauri, and Taoist monk, Muzi, whose readings of the I-Ching guide their quest.
Through the bloody male violence of whaling, and the unveiling of her feminine identity, Ishmaelle realises there is a mysterious bond between herself and the mythical white whale, Moby Dick. Xiaolu Guo has crafted a dramatically different, feminist narrative that stands alongside the original while offering a powerful exploration of nature, gender and human purpose.
Perfect for fans Madeline Miller, Percival Everett and Barbara Kingsolver
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
NBCC Award winner Guo (Nine Continents, a memoir) delivers a spectacular retelling of Moby-Dick, in which she recasts Ishmael as a 17-year-old girl and Ahab as a Black freedman named Seneca who's battling the "white devil." In 1858 England, Ishmaelle's parents and baby sister die from illness, and her brother leaves their village to find work as a sailor. Following in his footsteps, Ishmaelle leaves behind her tragic and isolated life on a "desolate salt marsh" in Kent for "freedom on the seas." Disguised as a cabin boy named Ishmael, she makes her way to New York City and then to New Bedford, Mass., where she joins the crew of a Nantucket whaling ship helmed by Captain Seneca, who's consumed with seeking vengeance against the white whale that took his leg and haunted by his father's legacy of enslavement. With unyielding resolve, Ishmaelle proves her worth as a sailor among the hardened crew. Privately, she finds solace in her friendships with Kauri, a quiet but steadfast Maori harpooner, and Mr. Hawthorn, the ship's surgeon, who treats her with "fatherly kindness." Guo conveys her protagonist's complex experience of gender in direct and elemental prose as Ishmaelle navigates the "floating life of a half-man half-woman." Equally captivating are passages from Seneca's perspective, in which he rues a betrayal by his wife and reveals the depth of his motivations. Newcomers to Moby-Dick and Melville devotees alike will find much to love.
