Ahab's Wife

Written by Sena Jeter Naslund

Narrated by Maryann Plunkett

This is destined to be remembered as one of the most-recognized first sentences in literature -- along with "Call me Ishmael." And Una Spenser, the transcendent hero at the center of Ahab's Wife may well become every bit as memorable as Ahab.

Inspired by a brief passage, in Moby, Dick, Sena Jeter Naslund has created an entirely new universe -- an epic-scale, enthralling and compelling saga, spanning a full, rich, eventful, and dramatic life. In the "soprano voice" whose absence critics lamented in Moby Dick -- the strong intelligent voice of a woman whose life is dominated by the sea -- Naslund tells many stories.

She narrates a family drama, as the child Una is sent away to live in a lighthouse to escape the blows of her religion-mad farther. She spins a romantic adventure, as Una finds early passion with a sailor, and disguised as a cabin boy, runs away to sea. She paints a portrait of a real, loving marriage, as through Una's eyes we see Ahab before the White Whale takes his leg and sends him into madness. Finally, she gives us a new perspective on the American experience, as the widowed Una makes a new life for herself in the company of Margaret Fuller, Frederick Douglass, Emersion and others.

Sena Jeter Naslund has thoroughly imbibed the spirit of Herman Melville, and that spirit permeates every scene of her novel. But great as her debt to Melville may be, Ahab's Wife stands alone, intact and vital. Inspired by a masterpiece, it is a masterwork in its own right.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Oct 1, 1999
• ISBN: 9780743540933

Reviews for Ahab's Wife

[artistlibrarian · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Though it was a national bestseller, I had never heard of this book or its author before coming across it at yet another of my used book sales. It won many awards so I threw it in my $5-a-brown-bag. I usually assume awards are a clear sign of good literature and this premise yet again did not fail me. Rather lengthy and at times verbose, I began reading Naslund's novel wondering if I would be able to finish. But, I quickly became engrossed and deeply committed to her main character, Una. She is married to Captain Ahab during his whaling escapades in Moby Dick, but you need not have read that tomb to appreciate this one. This story carries Una through her full and charming life, both at sea and comfortably settled on shore.Allow Una the time to you her story.

[mykl8s · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

More interesting than Moby Dick.

[rebarelishesreading · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

First let me say, I enjoyed reading [Ahab's Wife] and looked forward to picking it up again everytime. It's an entertaining story of a 19th century woman who lived a BIG, adventersome life. It caused me to read [Moby Dick] and I'm both glad I read that classic for itself as well as for the enjoyable connections to this book.But there were many things that bothered me about the book too. For example, as a 16-year-old girl, Una is allowed to travel alone to New Bedford to await her mother's arrival. I can't imagine there was a "proper" family in America that would have allowed that expecially when there were so many alternatives. That's just one example of the details that bothered me. I was also bothered by the fact that the author felt compelled to drag every prominent person who ever visited Nantucket in the 19th century into the story. Little was added and it felt cheesy to me. I also felt the book ended about 100 pages before the end but she felt it necessary to wrap up the story of each of the minor characters in the book. I think it would have been stronger without that.But back to my first point -- in spite of the things that bothered me I really did enjoy the book. The descriptive language is often lovely and, if you can forget some of the more difficult to believe things, it's a whale of a good story.

[dylanwolf · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Oh! What happened to the editor! I really wanted to like this book. A stonkingly good idea; a brilliant plot but poorly executed. There are some super scenes but why oh why is it 650 pages long? Make it a trilogy if you must but slow down and concentrate on quality rather than quantity. The writing is monotonously flat; not encouraging when you've still got 400 pages to go. The epic range with well-judged mixing of magical realism and touchstone traditional episodes - the lighthouse days, the giving-birth, the male-impersonation in order to go to sea etc. is brilliant but, for heaven's sake, in such a long book, mix the styles in which you deliver it. I got through to the end weary rather than entranced. A missed opportunity. What a shame.Find out about more wives' lives and be dazzled by economy and skill by reading Carol Ann Duffy's "The World's Wife" - power-packed poetry. She would have surely dealt with Mrs Ahab in ten terse verses.

[westfargolibrary · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

?Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last.? The first sentence of Ahab?s Wife Or, The Star-Gazer sets the tone for the rest of the novel. In language reminiscent of the best of 19th-century literature, Una tells her story of growing up in a lighthouse, going to sea as a cabin boy, her marriage to Ahab, and her later experiences. As she weaves a story that brings together threads from many of the social and historical happenings of the time, she includes personalities of that era as well as characters from Herman Melville?s Moby Dick. Ahab?s Wife is as fitting a companion for Moby Dick as Una was for Ahab, but you may find her story much more enjoyable.

[mjspear_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Una is drawn to water... whether the rivers of Kentucky or the Atlantic Ocean. This saga covers her full life, including a marriage to Ahab of Moby-Dick. Vivid writing, if at times verging on over-wrought (I smelled a romance novel trying to emerge! Ugh...) The first part of the book kept me reading... from her life under her religious zealot father to the lighthouse (one of my fav periods) to life aboard a whaling ship and wrenching shipwreck... Una's latr life in Nantucket, awaiting Ahab's return was for this reader boring and too philosophical. I agree with other reviewers who said they felt Una was too enlightened for her era and thus, in the end, unbelievable.

[drfuriosa · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Sena Jeter Naslund creates a spell-binding novel out of a few mournful lines from Moby-Dick to create something new, beautiful, and tragic at once. I felt that the story of Una, Ahab's wife, was vastly interesting and took on a life apart from being tied to Ahab--this was one of the greatest strengths of the novel.

This is a four-star book that had some serious WUT moments that made me LOL. I don't want to spoil them, especially since this is a beautiful book and quite an interesting story of a woman's life in the early nineteenth-century United States. But a few unfortunate wink-wink moments pulled me out of the narrative and felt just a bit too smugly meta for my taste.

Should you read it? Yes. Just don't get too let down by some of the silly writing choices that occur later in the novel.

[booklovers2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I found this very engaging. Una, Ahab's wife is of course the main character and we follow her through her life and the traumatic events. Starting with early teenage years with her struggles with her religious father, her older teenage years where she finds her independence at the expense of her family and her own safety. She certainly went through tragic and devastating events and it was very cringeworthy at many times, although engrossing. The final epilogue wrapped the story perfectly where I was ready to close the cover after a great journey with Una. Definitely recommend but not for the light of heart!

[ldvoorberg · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The spin-off of Ahab and Moby Dick seems like the gimmick to grab readers who might not give a saga from old New England a read otherwise. This book tries to capture ALL of life from its time period, from living in rural Kentucky with a strict religious father to life in an old fashioned lighthouse island to whaling to transcendence to abolition to new star gazing and further. Was there such clutches of broad-minded (for the era) people who were scientists, non-religious, same-sex tolerant abolitionists who had survived traumatic ship wrecks and marriage to madness? It feels a little 21st century worldview to me, as well as over-filled with drama. The life's work or pet project of its author, perhaps, or perhaps that's my 21st century literary bias and this book is simply trying to introduce Moby Dick and his time period to a new audience. I guess it depends on your own interests.

[bookconcierge · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Opening line: Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last.Melville’s classic Moby Dick contains perhaps three or four sentences that reference Ahab’s wife – “… not three-voyages wedded – a sweet, resigned girl…” – but those brief references were enough to inspire Neslund to write this tome. Una is a marvelous character: intelligent, forthright, adventurous, eager to learn, ready to work, open to new ideas, questioning of the status quo, tenacious, principled, loyal and loving. Neslund takes her from her childhood in Kentucky, raised in a remote cabin near the Ohio River, by a God-fearing man who will beat the Lord into his daughter if necessary, and a devoted mother who will ensure her child’s safety, to her later years in Massachusetts. Along the way she encounters a wonderful cast of colorful characters – from her Aunt and Uncle, to the young men she is courted by, to the sailors / whalers she comes to admire, and the neighbors who form her “family” in Nantucket and ‘Sconset (including Mary Starbuck, wife of Ahab’s first mate). Neslund fills the novel with details of life in 19th century America:. the difficulties of a winter in a small Kentucky cabin, the excitement (and terror) of sailing on a whaling vessel, the tragedy of slavery, the joy of intellectual pursuits, the dangers of childbirth, and the quiet peace of a happy home. But make no mistake, the story is Una’s, first and foremost.

[riofriotex · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Sena Jeter Naslund took a brief reference in Moby Dick (which you don't need to read first) to the wife of Captain Ahab, and created an entire (historical fictional) life for that character.  Una Spenser is a little too modern for the era, in my opinion, but that gave the author the opportunity to bring up all the causes and concerns of the day (for example, religion -  Quakers, Unitarians, Universalists) and have Una interact with various famous people of the early- to mid-1800s (Frederick Douglass, Maria Mitchell, etc.), primarily on Nantucket island.  The first half of the book, about Una's life on an island lighthouse near New Bedford, and her decision to disguise herself as a cabin boy to follow two men she admires onto a whaling ship, is more interesting.  The second half of the book, after she marries Captain Ahab, really drags, and could have been shortened considerably (the book is 666 pages as a trade paperback), particularly after the death of Ahab is confirmed.

[valerieandbooks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Ahab's Wife is a novel that uses a brief mention of Moby-Dick's Captain Ahab's wife back at home in Nantucket, and from this builds a slow burn of a back story around her. I strongly feel this is better appreciated if one has already read Moby-Dick, as there are other characters, not just Captain Ahab, here. The author of Ahab's Wife does include what is probably her own agenda -- to provide a feminist counterpoint -- and in this novel, she also includes real-life characters at the time of Moby-Dick which gives parts of this novel a historical fiction flavor. Ahab's wife gets to meet Nathaniel Hawthorne, for example. In spite of all this, I did very much enjoy reading Ahab's Wife.

[smits_52 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

a beautifully written novel in a rich narrative. I enjoyed so much learning about whalers, their families, and the early days of Nantucket.

[threadnsong · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What an amazing piece of literature. The research into Nantucket's culture, the whaling ships, references to madness and living with despair, and life in the Kentucky wilderness are all top notch. Not to mention life as part of a lighthouse keeper's family: where their meals came from, keeping roses, the island's hidden secrets, all the minutiae of life. And one of the best parts was that Una was a heroine who loved sewing! Yay for the needle and thread and for warm Kentucky quilts!There is sensuality and flirtation as well, as Una lives in a world with men who find her attractive and she reacts to their overtures. She has a romantic side that she discovers and that side also becomes the pull for her to leave her lighthouse family and go a-whaling. Whether this happened in real life or not is up for discussion; what Una realizes as events unfold is that some things can not be discussed and her reaction to the same events will be different from the two men she loves. In a book this size there are bound to be characters who come and go, and Naslund does a good job of moving some characters' stories off of the main stage so that others who are more suited for a new chapter of Una's life can enter. The issue of slavery is discussed right at the beginning and in various points and *trigger warning* the book opens with a difficult and tragic birth. This tragedy is, even now, a commonplace occurrence, and the reasons for it being at the beginning of Una's narrative are given towards the end. If you want to curl up with a glimpse of a woman's life in the early 1800's or to research the history of whaling (yes, it's in there) or the island of Nantucket, or if you love books that have a rich and warm language, this book is worth its weight.

[janerawoof · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An unexpected pleasant surprise! The author has taken a few lines from Moby Dick mentioning Captain Ahab's wife, and she has constructed a whole persona and life for the woman. The narration takes the form of Una's remembrances and she plans to call it "The Stargazer". It begins in Kentucky, then she is taken to an aunt and uncle and cousin on an Island near Massachusetts, where her uncle is the lighthouse keeper. She grows up in the circle of a loving, close-knit family, companion to Cousin Frannie. We follow Una on her adventure, disguised as a boy, running off to sea and serving as cabin boy and assistant to the cook on the "Sussex", a whaler. The ship is rammed by a whale and survivors drift in one of the small whale boats and are plucked from the sea by another ship. The story follows Una's life, meeting Captain Ahab for the first time, disastrous 1st marriage to a sailor, Kit Sparrow, then marriage to Captain Ahab. After his death on the "Pequod", she makes a life for herself, with loving friends.This was a beautiful story, with opulent language all through. I was drawn into the story immediately; I was immersed in the sights and sounds of that time and place. I thought the cabin boy incident a little far-fetched, but it gave the author an opportunity to describe life aboard a whaler. Highly recommended.

[pallandavid · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There is little to nothing that I could add to synopsis given by the other reviewers here, so I won't attempt to. The first half of Ahab's Wife is wonderful - full of activity and differing characters. The second half - not so much. The second half is very much a young woman figuring herself and her world out. Introspective. I almost stopped reading, I detest characters who never seem to have problems adjusting to new situations, and Una just goes with the flow, accepting whatever - whenever. I kept reading because (1) not finishing a book is a mortal sin in my life, and (2) I kept hoping the thrill of the first half of the book would re-emerge. Which it didn't.

[m.belljackson · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Ahab's Wife leads off with compelling first chapters and a strong forward momentum.Early plot and characters are mesmerizing though abstract thinking and dialogue often seembeyond the reach of kids and at times veer into preciousness.Unfortunately, with the improbable ease of a young girl being accepted as a cabin boy on a whaler,the story degenerates into page turning to get to the end. I never did find out why Giles and Kip skipped out on Una...but then I didn't care about the characters after the early chapters.It was great to have other perspectives on the brutality of whale killing.Black, then White, cannibalism was a gratuitous plot and character "development," with Una seeming to pride herself on her unsavory disclosures.Sure wish she had not included Ishmael.

[rascalstar · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Loved this book, which is rich in detail and spans a long period of time and several locations. It's written from the viewpoint of a girl as she grows up and her most unusual experiences, much of it having to do with the whaling industry as the book goes on, in the time of Moby Dick. Highly recommend the book. I couldn't wait to get back to it while reading it.

[lamotamant · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is just one of many rereads of this book for me and, as always, the rereads will continue. There's so much strength, beauty, and breath in the character of Una. I feel like this story submerges you completely within itself and you always come out a bit different on the other side.

[ebt1002 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last." Thus opens this sweeping novel of the infamous Captain Ahab's wife, Una. Starting in a Kentucky cabin in deepest winter and ending on the windswept eastern edge of Nantucket, the novel takes us through the middle part of the 19th century, using the touchstone of the story of Captain Ahab and his nemesis, Moby Dick, to explore themes of family, abolition, faith and science, suffrage and women's right to self-determination, and revenge. I thoroughly enjoyed Una's story and loved the brief visits by famous souls such as Frederick Douglass and Margaret Fuller, along with a fascinating cast of truly fictional characters. Sena Jeter Naslund wanders just a wee bit too far down the path of philosophical musings at times but otherwise this is a satisfying ambitious read.

[k0sborn · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I've never gotten so far along in a book, and bailed.Una, the main character, is so full of herself that I couldn't bring myself to finish this book. I realized about 1/3 of the way into the book that I didn't like Una. I was at least 3/4 of the way through when it dawned on me that I really didn't care what happened to perfect Una and her perfect son, Liberty. I can't help but think that the character is somehow a reflection of the author, and I will avoid her books in the future.

[ghneumann · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

For some reason, Moby-Dick has gotten a reputation as a boring slog of a book. That's what I had in my head before I read it last year, anyways, and was delighted to be proven wrong. It's actually both lively and informative, full of adventure and interesting facts about whaling in the olden days of yore. And while our narrator, Ishmael, is a bit of a cipher, Captain Ahab is one of the most memorable characters in literature, with his ivory false leg and burning wrath for the white whale. And in a throwaway line or two, it's mentioned that he has a wife at home.In Ahab's Wife, author Sena Jeter Naslund takes that barely-mentioned, never seen character and gives us her whole life. A novel I read in high school, The Red Tent by Anita Diamant, had the same kind of basis (took a minor biblical character and told her life story), and I loved that book wholeheartedly. Which probably set my expectations a little too high, which isn't really fair, but between that and a killer first line, "Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last", I was really excited to read this book.As you can probably surmise from the above, I didn't like it quite as much as I was hoping. Una Spenser is meant to be a one-of-a-kind, irrepressible heroine, but I found her maybe a little too special. She's not just lovely, smart, brave, resilient, passionate, and strong, she's also an object of desire for virtually every man she meets, treated with lavish kindness by almost every person of either gender that she comes across, and unfailingly tolerant and liberal in her attitudes. Which is just not very realistic, and leaves her ringing false as a character. While she certainly has to overcome obstacles (the aftermath of a horrific shipwreck, her treatment at the hands of her first husband, the loss of her first child, the death of her second husband), her only real "flaw" seems to be that she's too impulsive and headstrong, too daring. Which, of course, is presented as not much of a flaw at all.I wish that Una was a better-drawn and more well-rounded character, because this book could have been quite lovely. Naslund's prose is definitely on the flowery side (if this turns you off, avoid this book at all costs because you will hate it), but I can get down with that if the story is compelling. The first half of the book had much more dramatic tension and excitement than the second half, which dragged in the long sections describing Una standing in the wind and gazing at the stars and/or sea, philosophizing about the world and her place in it. It's quite a lengthy novel at over 650 pages, and editing down some of the aforementioned mind-wandering-while-hair-blows-in-the-wind passages might make Una (and her story as a whole) a little more dynamic and interesting. That being said, I did enjoy reading it and thought it was a pretty good book. Just not quite as good as I wanted it to be.

[librarycin · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is the story of Ahab's wife, Captain Ahab from Moby Dick. This book follows Una from when she is a child living with her aunt, uncle and cousin at a lighthouse, to her leaving and stowing away as a cabin boy on a ship, then through her three marriages. It was ok. Way too long. There were so many different sections, things that happened... Some I was more interested in than others. My favourite part of the book was probably Una's four years at the lighthouse with her family. Other than that, my mind wandered a lot of the time (though there were bouts of interest), and when I wasn't reading, I wasn't being pulled back to read. The only reason I kept coming back to it was to finish it, and move on. Maybe I would have liked it more if I remembered Moby Dick from high school? I don't recall liking Moby Dick, though, so I'm not sure that would have helped. The interview with the author at the end of the book was interesting.

[mazeway · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Just a lovely book. I loved the narrator's voice as she told of her life in a Kentucky cabin, as the semi-adopted child of lighthouse keepers, aboard a whaling ship, and on Nantucket as the wife of Captain Ahab. It was long. A few subplots could have been edited out with no loss to the story. But overall it was such a lyrical, enchanting read that I forgave it its long-windedness.

[wareagle78 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a beautifully written book. I can't say enough about Sena Jeter Naslund's prose. Two of the reviews quoted on the cover and first page say so perfectly what I mean. The LA Times said "Lyrical...alluring and wise," while the NY Times Book Review says "Her Una is a deep and wayward creature, undaunted by convention, whose descriptions are dense with a lanquid and sensual interest in the world."The story itself is the story of Una, a Kentucky girl of twelve years, who leaves her home to live with her aunt. The story follows this unusual female through her adventures as a cabin boy aboard a whaling ship, as a shipwreck survivor, as the wife of a madman, of a ship captain (Ahab), as a single mother raising a son, to her life alone after he moves to town for school. But never, really, is Una alone. She has a strength of character that drenches the page; an ability to use her mind to create, entertain, learn and teach; a capacity to chart her own course that surely is unusual in the early 19th century; and a confidence in herself that astounds.When I started the book I did not realize that the author grew up here in my hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. To me that made the book even more astonishing, given her detailed characterizations of life on the sea and the whaling, given our landlocked common home.Need I say I recommend this book highly? It is not a quick read. The story moves slowly but you don't want to miss a word, a description, of Naslund's prose.

[larissagbrown · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I loved this book, and yet didn't care to finish it. It was a brief affair.

[jessicareadsthings · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Really great story, but the character stays the same through the entire book!

[maryreinert · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Amazing imagery allows the reader to "be there." This book is definitely a keeper as it will be one I will read again. There is simply too much to be absorbed in one reading.

[esta1923 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"Ahab's Wife" has been described by some reviewers as a footnote to "Moby Dick." If so, at 666 pages it probably qualifies as the longest footnote on record!In Melville's classic the captain's wife is briefly mentioned twice. In Naslund's novel, which uses as its format the autobiography of its narrator, Una Spenser, readers are given a fine portrait of Captain Ahab as his life intersects with hers.Fiction requires a willing suspension of disbelief. Readers who choose to accept this premise will follow Una through the experiences that led her to become the one woman Ahab marries, although he is (as we learn in the book's opening sentence) "... neither my first husband nor my last.""In Search of Moby Dick" by Tim Severin is a lively account of its author's experiences proving the validity of Melville's plot. "The Classics Reclassified," by Richard Armour is a clever spoof of seven famous books, including "Moby Dick."

[rockstarninja_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

!!WARNING!! !!SPOILERS!! I began this book really liking it, but somewhere in the middle I found myself thinking the author was just trying way too hard. While the writing was excellent, I felt the main characters story was TOO harrowing, and in the end, it didn't really end up being THAT big a deal. When I finally got to Una marrying Ahab and I thought back, it was almost as if she used the Essex's shipwreck and Una, Kit, and Giles' time in the boat as a way to just get rid of Kit and Giles. I found it disappointing because earlier in the book it seemed like they had such a profound impact only to have them seem not to be important. It was as if she forgot about everything and would just slightly muse about it later in life. But maybe it just seemed that way because what happened was enough for Giles to kill himself and Kit to go completely insane, but Una just felt kinda sorry about it. I also felt like the last 100 of the book didn't really need to be there. She spent all the time waiting for Ahab and when it is finally determined that he is definitely dead it was as if the author didn't know where to go in order to read her final ending point of Una meeting Ishmael, so she had her jump from place to place but not really doing anything but talking people who ended up being important historical figures. . .Even after all of that, Ahab's Wife was still a very beautifully written novel and one I may read again and will probably rate higher in the future.