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Summary: "Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last." This is destined to be remembered as one of the most-recognized first sentences in literature--along with "Call me Ishmael." Sena Jeter Naslund has created an entirely new universe with a transcendent heroine at its center who will be every bit as memorable as Captain Ahab. Ahabs Wife is a novel on a grand scale that can legitimately be called a masterpiece: beautifully written, filled with humanity and wisdom, rich in historical detail, authentic and evocative. Melvilles spirit informs every page of her tour de force. Una Spensers marriage to Captain Ahab is certainly a crucial element in the narrative of Ahabs Wife, but the story covers vastly more territory. After a spellbinding opening scene, the tale flashes back to Unas childhood in Kentucky; her idyllic adolescence with her aunt and uncles family at a lighthouse near New Bedford; her adventures disguised as a cabin boy on a whaling ship; her first marriage to a fellow survivor who descends into violent madness; courtship and marriage to Ahab; life as mother and a rich captains wife in Nantucket; involvement with Frederick Douglass; and a man who is in Nantucket researching his novel about his adventures on her ex-husbands ship. Ahabs Wife is a breathtaking, magnificent, and uplifting story of one womans spiritual journey, informed by the spirit of the greatest American novel, but taking it beyond tragedy to redemptive triumph. "Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last." This is destined to be remembered as one of the most-recognized first sentences in literature--along with "Call me Ishmael." Sena Jeter Naslund has created an entirely new universe with a transcendent heroine at its center who will be every bit as memorable as Captain Ahab. Ahabs Wife is a novel on a grand scale that can legitimately be called a masterpiece: beautifully written, filled with humanity and wisdom, rich in historical detail, authentic and evocative. Melvilles spirit informs every page of her tour de force. Una Spensers marriage to Captain Ahab is certainly a crucial element in the narrative of Ahabs Wife, but the story covers vastly more territory. After a spellbinding opening scene, the tale flashes back to Unas childhood in Kentucky; her idyllic adolescence with her aunt and uncles family at a lighthouse near New Bedford; her adventures disguised as a cabin boy on a whaling ship; her first marriage to a fellow survivor who descends into violent madness; courtship and marriage to Ahab; life as mother and a rich captains wife in Nantucket; involvement with Frederick Douglass; and a man who is in Nantucket researching his novel about his adventures on her ex-husbands ship. Ahabs Wife is a breathtaking, magnificent, and uplifting story of one womans spiritual journey, informed by the spirit of the greatest American novel, but taking it beyond tragedy to redemptive triumph."Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last." This is destined to be remembered as one of the most-recognized first sentences in literature--along with "Call me Ishmael." Sena Jeter Naslund has created an entirely new universe with a transcendent heroine at its center who will be every bit as memorable as Captain Ahab. Ahabs Wife is a novel on a grand scale that can legitimately be called a masterpiece: beautifully written, filled with humanity and wisdom, rich in historical detail, authentic and evocative. Melvilles spirit informs every page of her tour de force. Una Spensers marriage to Captain Ahab is certainly a crucial element in the narrative of Ahabs Wife, but the story covers vastly more territory. After a spellbinding opening scene, the tale flashes back to Unas childhood in Kentucky; her idyllic adolescence with her aunt and uncles family at a lighthouse near New Bedford; her adventures disguised as a cabin boy on a whaling ship; her first marriage to a fellow survivor who descends i