When, in Moby Dick, Ahab disappeared, tied to his nemesis, only one man survived to tell the tale, Ishmael. The story, it appeared, had ended. But stories never really end. What happened thereafter to Ishmael, condemned, for a while, to repeat his account as if there were a lesson to be learned, by him or those to whom he repeated a tale which had a mystery at its heart? Was the white whale more than a simple fact of nature and what drove a man to pursue it as though there were a sudden insight to be unveiled? Here is a sequel to that story as Ishmael seeks to purge his memories, trying his hand at pioneering before caught up in a bloody Civil War, once more facing death, before returning to the sea and the whaling on which he believed he had turned his back. And what of Ahab and a certain white whale? There are rumours that both still sail the deep ocean, locked in that same embrace which brought about the death of all on the Pequod. After all, sometimes rumours may have the shadow of truth about them, repetition being a fundamental law of existence.Christopher Bigsby is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Arts. His first novel, Hester, won the McKitterick Award while Beautiful Dreamer was an American Library Association Notable Book. His biography of Arthur Miller was shortlisted for the Sheridan Morley and James Tait Black Memorial Prize in Britain and the George Freedley Award in the United States It was also a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title while a winner of the European Association for American Studies Prize.Of Hester: 'Magnificent ... Unnaturally beautiful' (The Village Voice) 'Enchantingly beautiful' (The Washington Post}Of Beautiful Dreamer: ''a powerful Faulknerian vision'' (Joyce Carol Oates) 'Stylistically brilliant and pitilessly gripping' (Louis de Bernières)
