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Dayswork
In wry, epigrammatic prose, Dayswork tells the story of a woman who spends the endless days of the pandemic sorting fact from fiction in the life and work of Herman Melville.
Obsessed by what his devotion to his art reveals about cost, worth, and debt, she delves into Melville’s impulsive purchase of a Massachusetts farmhouse, his fevered revision of Moby-Dick there, his intense friendship with neighbor Nathaniel Hawthorne, and his troubled and troubling marriage to Elizabeth Shaw.
As the narrator’s fascination grows and her research deepens, she examines Melville’s effect on the imagination and lives of generations of biographers and writers, including Elizabeth Hardwick and Robert Lowell. Ultimately, her quarantine project is a midlife reckoning with her own marriage and ambition. Absorbing, charming, and intimate, Dayswork considers the blurry lines between literature and life, and the ways we locate ourselves in the lives of others.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2023
140 people are currently reading
6167 people want to read
About the author
Chris Bachelder
17 books170 followersChris Bachelder is the author of Bear V. Shark, U.S.!: Songs and Stories, Abbott Awaits, and The Throwback Special. His fiction and essays have appeared in McSweeney’s, The Believer, and the Paris Review. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Cincinnati, where he teaches at the University of Cincinnati.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 318 reviews
August 26, 2024
This is the Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club September 2024 selection. The authors will join us for a live discussion!
In the endless days of the pandemic, a woman spends her time sorting fact from fiction in the life and work of Herman Melville. As she delves into Melville’s impulsive purchase of a Massachusetts farmhouse, his fevered revision of Moby-Dick there, his intense friendship with neighbor Nathaniel Hawthorne, and his troubled and troubling marriage to Elizabeth Shaw, she becomes increasingly obsessed by what his devotion to his art reveals about cost, worth, and debt. Her preoccupation both deepens and expands, and her days’ work extends outward to an orbiting cast of Melvillean questers and fanatics, as well as to biographers and writers—among them Elizabeth Hardwick and Robert Lowell—whose lives resonate with Melville’s. As she pulls these distant figures close, her quarantine quest ultimately becomes a midlife reckoning with her own marriage and ambition.
In the endless days of the pandemic, a woman spends her time sorting fact from fiction in the life and work of Herman Melville. As she delves into Melville’s impulsive purchase of a Massachusetts farmhouse, his fevered revision of Moby-Dick there, his intense friendship with neighbor Nathaniel Hawthorne, and his troubled and troubling marriage to Elizabeth Shaw, she becomes increasingly obsessed by what his devotion to his art reveals about cost, worth, and debt. Her preoccupation both deepens and expands, and her days’ work extends outward to an orbiting cast of Melvillean questers and fanatics, as well as to biographers and writers—among them Elizabeth Hardwick and Robert Lowell—whose lives resonate with Melville’s. As she pulls these distant figures close, her quarantine quest ultimately becomes a midlife reckoning with her own marriage and ambition.
September 27, 2023
Dayswork was so much fun to read, especially the veritable feast of fun facts. What did Herman Melville have to say about American critics? What did Nathaniel Hawthorne's son Julian have to say about Melville? How many species go through menopause, and of those, how many of them are whales? What was the name of the dog in Jane Eyre, and which famous poet adopted that name for their own dog? (The name of Byron's dog is also mentioned, and surprisingly it is a nautical term, and not say, Canem Arrogantis.)
The entire novel is a kind of celebration of absurdity: the learned husband and wife who are both writers and seem to compete for who is most clever and witty, the early pandemic which creates a whole new way of doing everything while stuck in place, the research conducted by the wife who wants to write a book about Melville, the intimate bromance between Hawthorne and Melville, and even perhaps the quest to write a book about Melville in the first place. (Can a book about Melville be its own White Whale?)
The MC, as she dives deeper into her quest to write a book about Melville, discovers that there seem to be more things that cannot be quantified than there are things that can be measured. How shall we measure the patience of Melville's family or of Hawthorne's? What is the correct measure of confidence, or ambition, or even a dayswork, or the precarious state of marriage during already trying times (what the wife compares to "temporal disintegration.")
We begin to see that the (unnamed) wife/narrator is beginning to connect the looseness of pandemic time, the looseness of Melville's fantasies, and the erosion of her own marriage. Her husband seems less solid to her, as if he were there, but not really there, like a remote Zoom call husband.
Melville teaches the writer who would write about him, that fate isn't something that happens to us. Rather, we *are* fate. We are destiny. Therefore, in order to escape fate, we would have to escape ourselves, which seems a little dark, and about as possible as defeating the sea. Or a global pandemic. Or a marriage which is becoming a ghost of itself.
The writer makes a slew of unparalleled parallels. It is rather stunning. Nothing is mentioned that means nothing. The delving into other poet's and writer's lives is fascinating, especially the tumultuous relationship of Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Hardwick.
Just as Melville tried to use the entire dictionary to express something about life itself, the writer tries to interpret her own life through writers and language.
The reader has to extrapolate the writer's reflections on her own marriage, since she only hints at her conclusions via comparison. Certainly the couple is intellectually engaged. They respect each other and listen to each other, but they seem to share knowledge over intimacy. Even smart people can be unaware that they are becoming unmoored and are drifting.
I found this novel to be whipsmart and engaging, and I will be thinking about it for a long time.
The entire novel is a kind of celebration of absurdity: the learned husband and wife who are both writers and seem to compete for who is most clever and witty, the early pandemic which creates a whole new way of doing everything while stuck in place, the research conducted by the wife who wants to write a book about Melville, the intimate bromance between Hawthorne and Melville, and even perhaps the quest to write a book about Melville in the first place. (Can a book about Melville be its own White Whale?)
The MC, as she dives deeper into her quest to write a book about Melville, discovers that there seem to be more things that cannot be quantified than there are things that can be measured. How shall we measure the patience of Melville's family or of Hawthorne's? What is the correct measure of confidence, or ambition, or even a dayswork, or the precarious state of marriage during already trying times (what the wife compares to "temporal disintegration.")
We begin to see that the (unnamed) wife/narrator is beginning to connect the looseness of pandemic time, the looseness of Melville's fantasies, and the erosion of her own marriage. Her husband seems less solid to her, as if he were there, but not really there, like a remote Zoom call husband.
Melville teaches the writer who would write about him, that fate isn't something that happens to us. Rather, we *are* fate. We are destiny. Therefore, in order to escape fate, we would have to escape ourselves, which seems a little dark, and about as possible as defeating the sea. Or a global pandemic. Or a marriage which is becoming a ghost of itself.
The writer makes a slew of unparalleled parallels. It is rather stunning. Nothing is mentioned that means nothing. The delving into other poet's and writer's lives is fascinating, especially the tumultuous relationship of Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Hardwick.
Just as Melville tried to use the entire dictionary to express something about life itself, the writer tries to interpret her own life through writers and language.
The reader has to extrapolate the writer's reflections on her own marriage, since she only hints at her conclusions via comparison. Certainly the couple is intellectually engaged. They respect each other and listen to each other, but they seem to share knowledge over intimacy. Even smart people can be unaware that they are becoming unmoored and are drifting.
I found this novel to be whipsmart and engaging, and I will be thinking about it for a long time.
June 16, 2023
What a delightful journey this novel took me on!
It was like a room with many doors, the doors leading to more rooms with more doors, and yet taking one back to where one started. The narrative segues into asides, sharing the stories of Melville admirers and biographers. One such tangent is about Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Hardwick, which is also a story about marriage.
Hardwick wrote that Melville was “given to violence in the household,” based on family stories and letters. After his death, his wife promoted his work and pressed for reissuing of the books, which fed a consequent “Melville Revival.”
We realize how elusive Melville is–can we really know him? Even his New York Times death notice called him “Hiram Melville,” and he was “Norman Melville” on a crew list.
His Moby Dick is extolled as an eloquent masterpiece, inspirational, life-changing. “How much that man makes you love him!” (Hart Crane) “Herman Melville is a god.” (Maurice Sendak) And by others, particularly high school students, as a big snooze.
The story is set during the pandemic, with a woman researching Melville and discussing her findings with her husband.
There is much about Melville’s love for Nathaniel Hawthorne, famed for his beauty, his visits documented by Sarah Peabody Hawthorne, who noted his linen was dirty, and their son Julian, who loved Melville.
Melville’s early novels sold well, but his long poem Clarel and Moby Dick were failures. He worked for nineteen years as a customs inspector.
The first Melville I read was a volume that included Typee and Omoo that I found on my father’s bookshelf when I was a teen. I read Moby Dick as a young woman–skipping the Cetacea and whaling chapters, and then finally read it in whole it in middle age when our son read it in high school. In between, I read Billy Bud and The Confidence Man and Bartleby the Scrivener.
I was charmed when the narrator describes reading an old paperback of Howard’s End–the exact edition I discovered and read and fell in love with. I recalled reading Lowell’s Life Studies and Day by Day and Hardwick’s Sleepless Nights, sad that my copies were sacrificed in one of my dozen moves. But I have Moby Dick still, and this has inspired me to revisit it, to see how I experience it in my senior years.
Thanks to the publisher for a free book.
It was like a room with many doors, the doors leading to more rooms with more doors, and yet taking one back to where one started. The narrative segues into asides, sharing the stories of Melville admirers and biographers. One such tangent is about Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Hardwick, which is also a story about marriage.
Hardwick wrote that Melville was “given to violence in the household,” based on family stories and letters. After his death, his wife promoted his work and pressed for reissuing of the books, which fed a consequent “Melville Revival.”
We realize how elusive Melville is–can we really know him? Even his New York Times death notice called him “Hiram Melville,” and he was “Norman Melville” on a crew list.
His Moby Dick is extolled as an eloquent masterpiece, inspirational, life-changing. “How much that man makes you love him!” (Hart Crane) “Herman Melville is a god.” (Maurice Sendak) And by others, particularly high school students, as a big snooze.
The story is set during the pandemic, with a woman researching Melville and discussing her findings with her husband.
There is much about Melville’s love for Nathaniel Hawthorne, famed for his beauty, his visits documented by Sarah Peabody Hawthorne, who noted his linen was dirty, and their son Julian, who loved Melville.
Melville’s early novels sold well, but his long poem Clarel and Moby Dick were failures. He worked for nineteen years as a customs inspector.
The first Melville I read was a volume that included Typee and Omoo that I found on my father’s bookshelf when I was a teen. I read Moby Dick as a young woman–skipping the Cetacea and whaling chapters, and then finally read it in whole it in middle age when our son read it in high school. In between, I read Billy Bud and The Confidence Man and Bartleby the Scrivener.
I was charmed when the narrator describes reading an old paperback of Howard’s End–the exact edition I discovered and read and fell in love with. I recalled reading Lowell’s Life Studies and Day by Day and Hardwick’s Sleepless Nights, sad that my copies were sacrificed in one of my dozen moves. But I have Moby Dick still, and this has inspired me to revisit it, to see how I experience it in my senior years.
Thanks to the publisher for a free book.
Read
July 25, 2025Actually, two days' work. I read it as a break from the behemoth biography of James Joyce, which I will now return to. I had little choice, browsing it after a pick-up from the library. It sucked me in, being so rich in Melville detail.
It's a novel that reads like non-fiction, rife as it is with all manner of trivia and biographical facts about poor Herman Melville (who would wind up the worst kind of famous -- post-partum famous). It also is written bullet style (sans bullets, is all), white space between each brief entry from the POV of a wife who writes while living in lockdown with her husband (who also writes) and their children.
That's the only downer and probably the part that earned this the "fictitious" label. When the authors turn to themselves talking about Melville, about each other, about their kids or dogs. Please. Take it all out and leave only the steady stream of Melville facts and I would've been that much more pleased.
What amazes is that Herman wrote his most famous book, Moby-Dick, at 31 years of age. What doesn't surprise is that he expected great things and got... not much anything. It pretty much harpooned his career as a prose writer, taking the wind out of his sails (though a bit more was to follow, including Billy Budd after his death and some stories, including the famous naysayer's classic, "Bartleby the Scrivener").
The Melville trivia spilled into the Hawthorne trivia, because they were best buds in the few times they met and, as everyone knows, Herman wrote his appreciation of NM in ways that might be 19th century bravado or ways that might be more-than-just-affectionate (never mind that Hawthorne was more than a decade older, he was said to be handsome as all scarlet get-out).
I enjoyed, too, the incredible number of quotes from famous writers sharing their thoughts on Melville, especially his whaling wall book. Incredible, too? Many admitted it took them two, three, or four attempts (or even complete voyages) before they embraced the book as one of their holy-of-holiests.
It makes a one-time reader like me want to revisit and set sail anew, it does, I know I love the opening page already, that "cold damp November of the soul" bit. So. Damn. Good.
So if you love books about writers and don't mind the bothersome white noise of invasive authors making up stuff about their quarantined lives while they hunt for the great white facts of a Great American author's life, this will probably resonate with you, too. Alexander Chee calls it "a love letter to literature," which is about a pithy an endorsement as you can give it.
It's a novel that reads like non-fiction, rife as it is with all manner of trivia and biographical facts about poor Herman Melville (who would wind up the worst kind of famous -- post-partum famous). It also is written bullet style (sans bullets, is all), white space between each brief entry from the POV of a wife who writes while living in lockdown with her husband (who also writes) and their children.
That's the only downer and probably the part that earned this the "fictitious" label. When the authors turn to themselves talking about Melville, about each other, about their kids or dogs. Please. Take it all out and leave only the steady stream of Melville facts and I would've been that much more pleased.
What amazes is that Herman wrote his most famous book, Moby-Dick, at 31 years of age. What doesn't surprise is that he expected great things and got... not much anything. It pretty much harpooned his career as a prose writer, taking the wind out of his sails (though a bit more was to follow, including Billy Budd after his death and some stories, including the famous naysayer's classic, "Bartleby the Scrivener").
The Melville trivia spilled into the Hawthorne trivia, because they were best buds in the few times they met and, as everyone knows, Herman wrote his appreciation of NM in ways that might be 19th century bravado or ways that might be more-than-just-affectionate (never mind that Hawthorne was more than a decade older, he was said to be handsome as all scarlet get-out).
I enjoyed, too, the incredible number of quotes from famous writers sharing their thoughts on Melville, especially his whaling wall book. Incredible, too? Many admitted it took them two, three, or four attempts (or even complete voyages) before they embraced the book as one of their holy-of-holiests.
It makes a one-time reader like me want to revisit and set sail anew, it does, I know I love the opening page already, that "cold damp November of the soul" bit. So. Damn. Good.
So if you love books about writers and don't mind the bothersome white noise of invasive authors making up stuff about their quarantined lives while they hunt for the great white facts of a Great American author's life, this will probably resonate with you, too. Alexander Chee calls it "a love letter to literature," which is about a pithy an endorsement as you can give it.
October 23, 2023
I have a special little shelf where I keep the books that are better than wonderful, the books that resonate so deeply they make my heart ring like a bell. It has taken me fifty-five years to place a mere ten books on that shelf. This is the tenth.
October 30, 2024
Having read all of Chris Bachelder novels I was already looking forward to reading this collaboration with his wife, the poet Jennifer Habel and it didn't disappoint.
A fascinating trawl through all sorts of fact (and factoids) related to the life and work of Herman Melville as well as other related topics as described by an unnamed wife (presumably a version of Habel) who is collating this data together with her husband (who has had to go into quarantine in their basement - this is during COVID back in 2021)
A fascinating trawl through all sorts of fact (and factoids) related to the life and work of Herman Melville as well as other related topics as described by an unnamed wife (presumably a version of Habel) who is collating this data together with her husband (who has had to go into quarantine in their basement - this is during COVID back in 2021)
September 8, 2023
NetGalley audio received in exchange for an honest review
The first thing I would say about this audio is: It is not a good book for the audio format and even if the narration is (done by Janet Metzger) as needed the structure of the writing (lots and lots of lists) makes it very tedious when listened to--numbers in the lists read, many sentences go on and on with multiple ors and ands. I love audio in general but this book really tried my patience and I even increased the listening speed. In print one can skim but audio doesn't allow the reader to tune out completely or skip forward easily.
As far as the novel? memoir? itself--never a good sign when the reader is unsure if the book is meant to be fiction or slice of life. This book read more as a memoir but I had a hard time actually believing the story and felt more likely it was a fictional type memoir. Written by a husband and wife team it takes place during covid when the spouses are both home, children out of school and confined mostly to quarters. Mostly what we hear about is the wife's research on Herman Melville, his life, the many novels he wrote, how Moby Dick was never seen as a great work or sold well during his lifetime, his friendship with Hawthorne and what a lousy poor husband he was.
One hour was more than I needed on Melville but this went on for over six. I soon lost interest but there were occasional facts I might bring forth at a cocktail party but really have no need of. I don't want to be snarky but this book just went basically nowhere. It was all lists, what happened during the day, told in chronological order right down to feeding the dog, four opinions on how tall Melville was, facts, facts facts often unconnected--it went on and on. The occasional real time conversations by the husband and wife were the bright spots and there were way too few.
So 2 stars but I can't honestly recommend it--unless you are what the author calls a Melvillian wanting to know all things Melville--than this is for you!
The first thing I would say about this audio is: It is not a good book for the audio format and even if the narration is (done by Janet Metzger) as needed the structure of the writing (lots and lots of lists) makes it very tedious when listened to--numbers in the lists read, many sentences go on and on with multiple ors and ands. I love audio in general but this book really tried my patience and I even increased the listening speed. In print one can skim but audio doesn't allow the reader to tune out completely or skip forward easily.
As far as the novel? memoir? itself--never a good sign when the reader is unsure if the book is meant to be fiction or slice of life. This book read more as a memoir but I had a hard time actually believing the story and felt more likely it was a fictional type memoir. Written by a husband and wife team it takes place during covid when the spouses are both home, children out of school and confined mostly to quarters. Mostly what we hear about is the wife's research on Herman Melville, his life, the many novels he wrote, how Moby Dick was never seen as a great work or sold well during his lifetime, his friendship with Hawthorne and what a lousy poor husband he was.
One hour was more than I needed on Melville but this went on for over six. I soon lost interest but there were occasional facts I might bring forth at a cocktail party but really have no need of. I don't want to be snarky but this book just went basically nowhere. It was all lists, what happened during the day, told in chronological order right down to feeding the dog, four opinions on how tall Melville was, facts, facts facts often unconnected--it went on and on. The occasional real time conversations by the husband and wife were the bright spots and there were way too few.
So 2 stars but I can't honestly recommend it--unless you are what the author calls a Melvillian wanting to know all things Melville--than this is for you!
December 13, 2023
This is an unusual story of a woman researching and writing about the life of Herman Melville. She is also interacting with her husband at their home during the recent global pandemic. I found the tidbits about Melville interesting, especially those about his friendship with friend and fellow writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. But for me, it did not gel into anything I could consider a novel. It seems rather rambling and unfocused. I liked it well enough, but it is difficult to recommend it. I think the right audience for this one is a person who enjoys originality over plot or characterization.
3.5
3.5
December 10, 2025
Melville and marriage during Covid, such an interesting and unique juxtaposition of themes. Seemingly fulfilling unions - the wife in pursuit of Melville and finding materials she hunts; sharing her progress with her husband who seems interested and engaged with her; figuring out together how to survive the pandemic and its isolation together; even the friendship between Melville and Hawthorne seemingly providing much that at least Herman needed. Alas, twasn't meant to be. Sad notes, a well done tale of woe, unlike anything else.
October 23, 2023
Absolutely marvelous. I adored this remarkable book set during the pandemic that not only deals with family life during it, and a marriage, but Melville and Hawthorne and Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Hardwick, lives and marriages and dramas, and egos, and literature obsessions, and obsessions about life and so much more. I also laughed a lot reading it.
I do think, however, that Goodreads needs to insure that both of the authors' names appear.
I do think, however, that Goodreads needs to insure that both of the authors' names appear.
September 17, 2024
i found this book on the sidewalk when walking home. it was in a big box of books someone was giving away. i could tell they were a publisher or someone in the industry based on all their paris reviews, n+1s, and the fact that this was an advanced uncorrected proof. it sat on my shelf until i mucked up the courage to read moby dick this summer.
this was an awesome thing to follow up with. i’m so glad it was good. i so enjoy being in someone’s head as they deep dive into an obsession, as so many have done w/ melville and moby dick.
melvilles life was really sad and crazy. and the women in his life, particularly his wife, went through a lot in support of his days work. all for him to ultimately be unsuccessful up through his death until his work was revived in the 1920s.
the narrator of this story pulls us into that world and applies it to her own marriage during the early days of the covid-19 pandemic, at home with her husband. in doing so she also articulates what a lot of biographers of melville danced around. love
this was an awesome thing to follow up with. i’m so glad it was good. i so enjoy being in someone’s head as they deep dive into an obsession, as so many have done w/ melville and moby dick.
melvilles life was really sad and crazy. and the women in his life, particularly his wife, went through a lot in support of his days work. all for him to ultimately be unsuccessful up through his death until his work was revived in the 1920s.
the narrator of this story pulls us into that world and applies it to her own marriage during the early days of the covid-19 pandemic, at home with her husband. in doing so she also articulates what a lot of biographers of melville danced around. love
December 22, 2023
When your marriage has emerged from the Bad Time and its poor communication into a time of communication mainly, apparently, through Herman Melville biography - the wife’s obsession. I wouldn’t like to be alone, the husband notes as he emerges from his pandemic isolation period. It could be far worse, the wife must think to herself as she notes the realities of married life for Mrs. Melville and other wives of men who were great at literature and bad indeed in relationships. It might be thought of as sad, but on the other hand, it might be thought of as productive and not unpleasant.
At least I think that’s what is being said about the marriage. Mostly it is hints and implications among all the Melville and associated bits.
At least I think that’s what is being said about the marriage. Mostly it is hints and implications among all the Melville and associated bits.
December 28, 2023
Definitely a book I will be buying once its released on paperback. This is why I continue to read books from the Tournament of Books nominees each year; a book I hadn't heard of, and here we are, probably a favorite book I've read this year.
There's so much I enjoyed about this journey, and I've never even attempted to read Moby Dick. But that was fine by me -- I do love a story that interrogates the role of the legendary men (Melville) and how history remembers them, and who may have helped them (oh, he had a wife, eh?). And while I've never read Moby Dick, I have read the cited works used throughout authored by Elizabeth Hardwick, and now have a hankering to revisit.
I also loved this book's love of books and the ties it makes across decades of literature and the inspiration the authors trace back and connect. There's much more to say about this book, and I may write about it more one day. Just, a lovely book that I loved very much.
There's so much I enjoyed about this journey, and I've never even attempted to read Moby Dick. But that was fine by me -- I do love a story that interrogates the role of the legendary men (Melville) and how history remembers them, and who may have helped them (oh, he had a wife, eh?). And while I've never read Moby Dick, I have read the cited works used throughout authored by Elizabeth Hardwick, and now have a hankering to revisit.
I also loved this book's love of books and the ties it makes across decades of literature and the inspiration the authors trace back and connect. There's much more to say about this book, and I may write about it more one day. Just, a lovely book that I loved very much.
September 26, 2023
I'm not entirely sure what this book was trying to do. Its structure was strange. And, while I don't have an issue with strange narrative structures, this structure seemed to lack one key element--narrative. There were a lot of fun interesting tid-bits about Melville (most of which I knew already from an intensive college seminar on Melville), a few of which I did not know. Mostly, I was bored. I recognize that there was an attempt to create some parallels between the Melville ephemera and the narrator's life, but it didn't really track. I failed to see the point of the whole thing. Neat, but not really a story.
October 3, 2023
A big associative spillage of snippets about Hermann Melville, his marriage, other authors, Melville researchers/obsessives, among which our auto fictional author, her rambling research, marriage and everyday life.
September 18, 2023
Complete and utter delight for the Melville-obsessed.
Read
November 28, 2023A darling book written in rhythmic stream of consciousness...a woman, husband and daughter cloistered during the initial Covid phase, with time to fill. Their focus, Herman Melville's life with offshoots to biographers and gorgeous findings such as conceivable love letters from Melville to Nathaniel Hawthorne.
You know a books great when you handwrite quotes from it to save for special occasions.
You know a books great when you handwrite quotes from it to save for special occasions.
February 11, 2024
4.5 book
January 6, 2024
I found this book "interesting." What was the purpose of writing it in this odd structure? I really don't know. I was interested in the historical part and also the current day part, but throughout the entire book, the structure just threw "stops" in my way. I read for story, always, and I needed more story here -- much more.
September 20, 2023
I really loved The Throwback Special and some similar threads of beautiful and thoughtful writing come through here from Chris Bachelder, but the plot (if you can even say this book has one) is mostly a miss.
I really enjoyed all the Melville scholarship, so that part was a delight. I didn’t mind the concept of the information being relayed by an active scholar in the field either. But the marital issues/quarantine stuff is just a complete miss.
In part I just feel that there’s no call for pandemic literature at the moment. We just lived this. It was terrible. I’m not sure I’m ever going to be interested in reliving it through fiction and I certainly don’t want to do it right now. There are plenty of other more interesting ways to create a feeling of isolation and subsequent reckonings.
But the real problem is the book’s messy attempt to take both the pandemic isolation and the Melville research and weave them in through whatever issues are going on in the narrator’s marriage. What exactly these issues are is never exactly defined in any tangible way. But mostly it’s just a boring rendition of a literary theme that isn’t especially interesting even when it’s better articulated or better tied to other parts of the plot than it is here.
The book is kind of worth reading for the interesting Melville scholarship, but it’s a really disappointing comedown from the flawlessly plotted and beautifully written Throwback Special. Read that instead.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
I really enjoyed all the Melville scholarship, so that part was a delight. I didn’t mind the concept of the information being relayed by an active scholar in the field either. But the marital issues/quarantine stuff is just a complete miss.
In part I just feel that there’s no call for pandemic literature at the moment. We just lived this. It was terrible. I’m not sure I’m ever going to be interested in reliving it through fiction and I certainly don’t want to do it right now. There are plenty of other more interesting ways to create a feeling of isolation and subsequent reckonings.
But the real problem is the book’s messy attempt to take both the pandemic isolation and the Melville research and weave them in through whatever issues are going on in the narrator’s marriage. What exactly these issues are is never exactly defined in any tangible way. But mostly it’s just a boring rendition of a literary theme that isn’t especially interesting even when it’s better articulated or better tied to other parts of the plot than it is here.
The book is kind of worth reading for the interesting Melville scholarship, but it’s a really disappointing comedown from the flawlessly plotted and beautifully written Throwback Special. Read that instead.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
November 27, 2023
I am of two minds with this brief little book. First, I absolutely adored the Melville minibiography that centers much of this novel. It brought forth so much great information about the American giant while providing ample discussion of his work and quotes from modern literary figures. Second, the pandemic part, I do not feel I am quite ready for this sort of pandemic novel, perhaps because my pandemic did not resemble so many others. I was not stuck at home able to luxuriate and think through thick historical texts and spending hours upon hours with family, but rather stuck working long hours at a hospital.
August 28, 2023
2.5 stars rounded up
I would have liked this book more had the synopsis not primed me for a "midlife reckoning with her own marriage & ambition." That, on the surface, barely exists in the book. Perhaps it's more present in subtext, but readers should go in knowing this book is asking them to pull a great deal of implied information and emotion from factoids about Melville and his biographers.
As it was, I mostly came away wanting to revisit Melville's work and a biography of his.
Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy.
I would have liked this book more had the synopsis not primed me for a "midlife reckoning with her own marriage & ambition." That, on the surface, barely exists in the book. Perhaps it's more present in subtext, but readers should go in knowing this book is asking them to pull a great deal of implied information and emotion from factoids about Melville and his biographers.
As it was, I mostly came away wanting to revisit Melville's work and a biography of his.
Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy.
November 15, 2023
I don't know how to describe what made this book so fantastic but I need you to go and read it right now. I can't even find a quote to post because the effect of the book is cumulative--the hilarity and poignancy wouldn't come across out of context. I also can't think of anything to compare it to--maybe it has a tiny bit of Sigrid Nunez about it?
Recommended for: people who constantly read things aloud to their spouses
Recommended for: people who constantly read things aloud to their spouses
July 2, 2024
So what if I somehow missed the fact it was a novel until I was 70 percent through the book (I thought it was a jointly written memoir). Whatever it was and is, it’s a lovely untraditional read, and now I want to read all the biographies of Herman Melville this book mentioned. I especially enjoyed the parts about Melville’s and Hawthorne’s friendship. I’m going to recommend this to a bunch of people.
June 16, 2024
I think you’d have to be a fan of early American literature it just a giant fan of Herman Melville to love this book.
January 13, 2024
I wasn't familiar with Jennifer Habel's writing before this book, but I've been a fan of Chris Bachelder since his hilarious "Lessons in Virtual Tour Photography". This was a surprisingly engaging and fascinating book about Melville and Melville obsessives; it makes me excited to read Moby Dick again!
Moby Dick is one of those "encyclopedic" novels that it about so many things, and this brief little book is that, too, in a way. In addition to biographical information about Melville, it talks about the authors, biographers, and fans who've been sucked into the "Melville vortex," including quite a bit about Robert Lowell and his wife, Elizabeth Hardwick.
I love reading books that make me want to read more books.
Moby Dick is one of those "encyclopedic" novels that it about so many things, and this brief little book is that, too, in a way. In addition to biographical information about Melville, it talks about the authors, biographers, and fans who've been sucked into the "Melville vortex," including quite a bit about Robert Lowell and his wife, Elizabeth Hardwick.
I love reading books that make me want to read more books.
February 23, 2024
As confusing as this book was (due mainly to its unconventional and unique manner of writing style) I enjoyed it. Having taken a graduate level course on the writings of Herman Melville (concentrating mainly on Moby Dick) I appreciated this in-depth look at not just Melville but Nathaniel Hawthorne (whose books I also studied in graduate school). I’m not sure if everything these authors relate is factual or not … yet I found much of it helpful to me in better understanding “Moby Dick” especially.
August 17, 2024
3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.
This was a weirdly compelling novel. It’s set in the early months of the pandemic, and is told from the perspective of a woman in the midst of researching the life and works of Herman Melville. Her husband makes occasional cameos, and their children are mentioned but don’t make an appearance. Mostly, the book is Herman Melville all the time, and I learned more about him than I did about the narrator. This book isn’t for everyone, but I kinda liked it.
This was a weirdly compelling novel. It’s set in the early months of the pandemic, and is told from the perspective of a woman in the midst of researching the life and works of Herman Melville. Her husband makes occasional cameos, and their children are mentioned but don’t make an appearance. Mostly, the book is Herman Melville all the time, and I learned more about him than I did about the narrator. This book isn’t for everyone, but I kinda liked it.
January 10, 2025
What a joy stumbling upon this novel on a shelf at a bookstore and in so doing discovering one of my favorite pieces of writing. Some books you can’t put down, and others you put down on purpose so you can pick them up again, savoring the experience of each new beautifully composed chapter. The closer I got to the end of this, the more I would flip back to prior pages, or save the next bit for tomorrow, or stare in awe at the paragraph I had just read. I cannot say this is for everyone. But it was certainly for me. A book I thanked when I read the final page.
January 30, 2024
What a delight! This novel is largely biographical information on Melville, who wasn't even an author I'd be likely to pick up a book on. But it is also most definitely a novel, and I adored the voice and humor of the narrator. The structure, and especially the use of juxtaposition, is perfect. It even made me want to re-read Moby Dick (and it took me like 15 tries to finish that whale the first time).
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