JUST CHILLING
Apr 10, 2022
4 minutes
by RUSSELL BAILLIE
Originally, Ian McGuire planned to write a novel about Herman Melville, the author of Moby-Dick. The University of Manchester professor had lectured about the writer in his classes on American literature. But researching Melville’s own whaling adventures, he got fascinated by the history of the industry.
So, instead of a book about the creator of Ishmael, Captain Ahab and the titular albino cetacean, he instead wrote . It, too, was another tale of mid-19thcentury whaling and the men desperate enough to do it. But one with an English perspective – it was mostly set on the whaler the Volunteer, sailing
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