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Summary: What a yarn, what a novel! What a writer!
Review: Author Naslund takes up the tale of the young wife Ahab mentions but briefly in Moby Dick. It takes place during and after the loss of the Pequod during its fatal hunt for the great White Whale and is the first-person memoir of Una Spenser.This book is so literary, so well crafted for its subject that I can't believe it was written in 1999 and not in the late 1800's. Only a few anachronisms betray the modern date for Ahab's Wife. (A mention of kiwi fruit for one, they were not cultivated outside of China nor known as Kiwi until the early 1900's) Una Spenser (named for Spenser's character in the Faerie Queene) is a courageous yet imaginative heroine. She struggles against God, against slavery, against traditional women's' roles in pre-Civil War America, runs away to sea, and meets Captain Ahab after a harrowing experience aboard ship. The scope of this book is grand and it is written a bit in style that pays homage to Melville, grasping some of Melville's poetry and symbology of Nature and also the sexual ambiguity. But Naslund also stitches in a bit of Virginia Woolf and To The Lighthouse. Sections of Melville's work are patched in to form a smooth story of Ahab's soul mate, his female side, Una, whom he loved and abandoned for his destiny with Moby Dick. In fact, this book reminds me of the patchwork quilts mentioned many times in Ahab's Wife. The pieces are stitched together (12 stitches to the inch, Una can sew) in colors that blend to make a pleasing whole. Yet pieces of fabric come from many diverse sources, such as the Melville classic and Woolf as well as others. This is a brilliant achievement of a novel yet reads like a magnificent yarn. Naslund is not only a master writer but also a master storyteller. I could not put this book down until I finished every last page and I am going to re-read it immediately.
Rating: 
Summary: A grand epic novel about a fascinating woman...
Review: What a stunning, beautiful novel. The first sentence, "Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last," sets the stage for this grand novel - Una is a woman whose stories are vibrant, impressive, and overwhelming to imagine. At a staggering 650+ pages, this masterpiece is worth every single page because you will savor every story, every trip, every character, every adventure, and every love, and you will put it down wishing for more. Naslund has plucked Una (Captain Ahab's wife) from her honorable mention in Melville's "Moby Dick", and woven a deeply satisfying portrait of a young girl who leaves her home in the hills of Kentucky because her god-fearing father cannot abide by her (her mother actually realizes that the child may be in danger because she cannot bring herself to believe what her father does so fervently), and travels to a small Island in (we assume) Long Island sound, not far from Nantucket to be raised by her aunt and uncle, a lighthouse keeper. Una goes to sea on a whaling vessel at 16 disguised as a boy, she suffers a shipwreck and an experience that drives her male companions to madness. Much of what happens to Una and her response to those experiences are such a pleasure to read, Naslund's prose is easy and her story captivating - the reader may find him/herself learning things (s)he never realized about his/her own country's history. I must resist telling all that happens although even if the reader knows, (s)he will look forward to being carried away on the wings of this novel. Someone else wrote and I agree, if you only buy one novel this year, I strongly suggest it is this one.
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Summary: Beautiful Language
Review: I can not recommend this book highly enough. The language is beautiful. I would have to re-read sentences several times because they sound so good and conjoured up such images. I have read 3 novels since this one and while their content is ok I am bored by their style - their lack of creativity and imagery.
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Summary: Wonderful, just too long
Review: This is a huge, ambitious, captivating novel that suffers from its length. After reading every word raptly for 400 pages (the sections on the lighthouse island and on board the ships were amazing) she really lost me for the final couple hundred pages. Superfluous characters abounded (Robben? David Poland? Maria Mitchell? Even Frannie had totally lost her appeal). Superfluous plot devices abounded (the move to 'Sconset, and almost all that happened there). Characters were thrown in only to be killed off before we have a chance to care. It is as if Naslund fell so in love with this story that she couldn't bear to climb out of it--but it would have benefitted from an earlier conclusion. That said, this book did that rare job of drawing me in completely to the world it created, so much so that it stayed in my head at night after I had closed the book. Vivid, beautifully political, perfectly graphic, sensual--a damn good read for the first several hundred pages. One more complaint--she didn't mention Melville in the Acknowledgments. Come on, Sena, you took the whole basis for the novel from him! Don't you think he deserves that much?
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Summary: One of the most beautifully written books I've ever read
Review: I loved this book in a way I've only loved a very few books in my life. From the first sentence, I was lost in Sena Jeter Naslund's evocative language. I breathed every breath with Una for the two weeks it took me to read her story, and I didn't want it to end. Reading some of the other reviews, I wonder whether some of you read the same book I did. I did not find Una's beliefs to be at all anachronistic. Why do so many people assume that *all* people in 19th century Nantucket must necessarily have been devout Christians? That is as absurd as assuming that all modern-day people are atheists and humanists. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. The language is sublime, the characters richly drawn and believable, the story as gripping as anything else I've read. Don't deny yourself the pleasure of of meeting Una Spenser. She is a heroine for the ages.
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Summary: A Graceful Bit of Prose
Review: AHAB'S WIFE is one of those books that captivates from its measured sentence to its final closing words. It draws minor inspiration from a brief quotation from Herman Melville's classic, MOBY DICK, but is a well crafted work of superb fiction. The author weaves various characters and settings together into a coherent whole, skimping neither on setting, nor on character development. The book chronicles the life of Una Spenser and her various incarnations, from daughter to lighthouse inhabitant to whaler to wife, mother and friend. The character is familiar and at the same time fresh and invigorating. The settings throughout the book propel the story forward with remarkable deft, lifting the reader to heights of imagination. I particularly enjoyed the early chapters and the lighthouse imagery. It evokes New England imagery and mood, a theme that pervades throughout, coloring even the brief sojourns to the American South. Characters are fully and carefully developed throughout the novel and the simple themes of coming-of-age and self-reliance are fully explored. I do not get much chance to read a lot of fiction, and for others in the same position, AHAB'S WIFE is a worthy exception. The author has done an excellent job and I would look forward to reading other works as they are developed or released.
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Summary: Loved this book
Review: I thought this book was wonderful. It may have been a little self-indulgent at times (e.g., famous people encounters), but overall I was completely addicted. I could not put this book down. Naslund is a wonderful story-teller.
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Summary: One of the Best
Review: Like one of the other reviewers, this novel set me off onto a personal Melville seminar. After reading Ahab's Wife, I read The Heart of the Sea, a Melville biography, and am now only a few chapters from the end of Moby-Dick. I loved Wife, because it does what all good fiction in general, and historical fiction in particular, must do, which is transport the reader to another place, another time, another frame of mind. The scenes at sea, the years at the lighthouse, the time Una spent with Ahab, were all magical, and made me wish I'd read this author earlier. And don't worry about the length of the book. So it's long, so what? It needs to be to tell this story. Yes, it takes its time, but it must do so if it is to successfully recreate the setting and time-period. If you want short, snappy books, read a formula murder mystery. One quibble, however: Naslund does what all female authors do when writing historical fiction, which is give her heroine an anachronistic 20th century sensibility which allows her to be the daring one, the only one not bound by the conventions of the historical period the author tries so hard otherwise to recreate. If you're going to write historical fiction, shouldn't ALL the characters be presented as accurately as possible, not just the chauvinistic men?
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Summary: Liked this? Now you must read another (see below.)
Review: I'll sound like a parrot here - repeating what's been said in other reviews. This book was near perfect in the first half, and then starts drowning in its own melodrama. Good god, how many people can die in 300 pages?! This book needed serious editing in the second half. Still, VERY beautifully written. However, here's the new part I want to add: If you enjoyed the subject matter, now turn to "The Heart of the Sea" - it's the true story of the sinking of the whaleship Essex, and it must be from the Essex that Naslund borrowed her Sussex (the ship Una went on.) It gives a marvelous (though gruesome) depiction of that event, and dovetails nicely with "Ahab's Wife", confirming Naslund's details. Next, I'm on to Moby Dick to complete the trilogy...
Rating:
Summary: Wow, what a woman!
Review: I had never read Moby Dick, but after reading Ahab's Wife, I am personally ready to take on the great white whale myself! The heroin in the story is strong, courageous, bold, and has enough faults to make her believable. I wished I could travel with her.
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