Ahab's Return: or, The Last Voyage

by Jeffrey Ford

A bold and intriguing fabulist novel that reimagines two of the most legendary characters in American literature—Captain Ahab and Ishmael of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick—from the critically acclaimed Edgar and World Fantasy award-winning author of The Girl in the Glass and The Shadow Year.

At the end of a long journey, Captain Ahab returns to the mainland to confront the true author of the novel Moby-Dick, his former shipmate, Ishmael. For Ahab was not pulled into the ocean’s depths by a harpoon line, and the greatly exaggerated rumors of his untimely death have caused him grievous harm—after hearing about Ahab’s demise, his wife and child left Nantucket for New York, and now Ahab is on a desperate quest to find them.

Ahab’s pursuit leads him to The Gorgon’s Mirror, the sensationalist tabloid newspaper that employed Ishmael as a copy editor while he wrote the harrowing story of the ill-fated Pequod. In the penny press’s office, Ahab meets George Harrow, who makes a deal with the captain: the newspaperman will help Ahab navigate the city in exchange for the exclusive story of his salvation from the mouth of the great white whale. But their investigation—like Ahab’s own story—will take unexpected, dangerous, and ultimately tragic turns.

Told with wisdom, suspense, a modicum of dry humor and horror, and a vigorous stretching of the truth, Ahab’s Return charts an inventive and intriguing voyage involving one of the most memorable characters in classic literature, and pays homage to one of the greatest novels ever written.

Genres: Fiction, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Novels, Historical, Audiobook, Speculative Fiction

272 pages, Hardcover

First published May 22, 2018

About the author

Jeffrey Ford is an American writer in the Fantastic genre tradition, although his works have spanned genres including Fantasy, Science Fiction and Mystery. His work is characterized by a sweeping imaginative power, humor, literary allusion, and a fascination with tales told within tales. He is a graduate of the State University of New York at Binghamton, where he studied with the novelist John Gardner.

He lives in southern New Jersey and teaches writing and literature at Brookdale Community College in Monmouth County. He has also taught at the summer Clarion Workshop for science fiction and fantasy writers in Michigan. He has contributed stories, essays and interviews to various magazines and e-magazines including MSS, Puerto Del Sol, Northwest Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Argosy, Event Horizon, Infinity Plus, Black Gate and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

He published his first story, "The Casket", in Gardner's literary magazine MSS in 1981 and his first full-length novel, Vanitas, in 1988.

Reviews

[Will Byrnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just as despair was sinking its claws into me, there was a great bang, the flinging wide of the door to the street, which was down a short set of steps to my left. The wind rushed up from outside, rifling the papers on the office desks, guttering the weak flame in the fireplace, and extinguishing my candle. I heard the door slam shut as I groped for matches. There came a heavy tread upon the stairway, every other as sharp and as distinctive as a hammer blow. I’m afraid I’m only courageous in the articles I pen, and so my hands shook badly as I relit the wick and spun to encounter the intruder.

Always on the lookout for the plume of a wonderful read, and nicely positioned at the masthead, I can honestly call out “Ahoy Mateys, off the starboard bow. Thar she blows!"


Image from Imgur.com

What a fun idea! What if Ahab did not dive to Davy Jones’s locker attached to a large cetacean? What if he somehow survived, then struggled for years to wend his way home, only to find that some crewman had written a rather poorly-received tome that has him passing on. One result of this unfounded rumor is that his wife and child have up and moved from their home, and he is desperate to track them down. A guy might be a little ticked off, and eager to plant something hard and sharp in the creator of such tales. We get some, but not too many, details of Ahab’s Oddyssean journey back from his near-death dunking. In fact, Ahab spent so much time on the ocean his name should have been Bob. He tracks his missing family to New York City and that Ishmael guy to a particular daily newspaper, where he was last known to be working, and the game is afoot, or, you know, a-peg, or a-something.

George Harrow is a concoctor of tales. Of course, his confabulations are presented to readers of the penny press publication, The Gorgon’s Mirror, as fact. His literary license probably has a double-oh somewhere near the end of it for the ongoing carnage he wreaks on the truth. But his readers and his editor, a crusty, fatherly sort named Garrick, love his work.


Jeffrey Ford - image from HarperCollins

He stood in the dim light of the entranceway. His beard, his glare, his stillness put me off. He exuded a sense of tension, a spring about to snap, and stared at me imperiously as if I had intruded upon him.

It takes little time for Garrick to assign Harrow to accompany Ahab on his quest, Ahab being somewhat at sea in New York. Harrow attempts to help him steer a steady course while relating the tale of their adventures to his readers. But it is rough waters into which they are headed, for Manhattan in 1853 could be as treacherous as a nor’easter on the open ocean.

The particularity of that danger resides in the person of one well-named evil-doer, Malbaster, a person of large proportions, an over-sized head, a considerable gang, growing control of crime on the island of Manhattan, and a talent that may be outside the ordinary. If his name sounds like a word for white and his oversized head puts one in mind of a certain representative of the odontoceti suborder, I am sure that is purely coincidental. In addition, he appears to have acquired, for enforcement purposes, the alarming assistance of a mythical beast.


Image from the NY Times

You could read this solely as a fun action/adventure yarn, something along the lines of Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Slayer, and that would be perfectly fine. It works well on that level. The story of Ahab seeking to reconnect with his family and maybe disconnect Ishmael from his, keeps full the sails that propel the ship of story onward. But if you leave it at that, you would be missing several other levels in the book. Ford, in presenting a vision of the mid-nineteenth century, uses it to reflect contemporary issues. Third, there is thematic consideration of whiteness, whether the flesh be from sea creatures, dark-hearted people of the fair-skinned variety, or related to the color of toadstools, snow, gowns, purity, or death. Much is made of dreaminess, and magic as well. And finally, there is the metafiction element. Ahab Returns is not a just a wonderful telling of a story, it is a stimulating look at story-telling per se.

If there’s one thing Ahab’s Return, or The Last Voyage isn’t, is a work of scholarship. One need not have even read Moby Dick to enjoy it. If a reader’s heard of Captain Ahab, merely heard of him, and knows he had a run in with a white whale, that’s plenty. This is not to say that the experience isn’t somewhat enhanced by the reading of what I once heard a wizened woman describe as “that wicked book.” - from Ford’s site

The Ahab of this tale is not so much the larger-than-life fire-breathing-dragon of Melville’s novel. While he has retained some of his thunderous rage and monomaniacal drive, he is a landlubber here, out of his element, less tragic, more familial. He is looking to save his son, not seek revenge on god. He and Harrow follow the clues they find and take on the allies they can in attempting to salvage some of the captain’s life and remnant humanity.


New York’s The Crystal Palace- image from Bowery Boys History.com

The setting for all this is New York City, Manhattan, in 1853, (the other four boroughs of today’s city not yet having become a part of the larger whole) a rough place, notable for, among other things, that geographic center of gang mayhem, the Five Corners. If you have seen the Martin Scorcese film, Gangs of New York, you might have a notion. Waterside locales were perhaps more important to the economy of the city then than they are today, and they tended to have more than their share of hard edges and dodgy characters, one of whom we encounter only by reference. You may have heard of him, the head of a particularly successful international gang of drug dealers, John Jacob Astor, whose trove of stashed opium, based on his actual dealings, is a major plot point.

Our characters pass through the Five Corners, and through several other notable locations of the time. We get to visit the short-lived but magnificent Crystal Palace, occupying the outskirts of the city then, what is Bryant Park on 42nd Street today. One character has a residence at St John’s Park, which was the site of the first townhouse development around a private park. (Before Gramercy Park did the same.) Like most things in NY, it was later redeveloped into something else. Ford manages to squeeze an impressive number of street names into his narrative. Seneca Village, located in a part of what would become Central Park, gets a particularly focused visit. As does a piece of Manhattan little known even by residents, The Indian Caves, in what is now Inwood Park, at the northern edge of the island, a considerable trek by horse-drawn coach at the time, not the one-hour train ride it might be today from lower Manhattan. An erstwhile black-owned theater gets a brief look as well. For a native, this was all Turkish Delight, but it may be a tiny bit less sweet for non-native readers.


Breaching white whale with quote from Ahab – image from Imgur

One of the primary motifs that appears throughout the book like foam on the crest of a wave is whiteness. Unless you are new to this planet, you already know that Moby Dick, Ahab’s bête noire, was a white whale. White might be a symbol of death in this context, or of God, but it is definitely something frightening, while still associated with purity. Weird, no? Malbaster has a particularly ghastly hue. His followers liken it to the surface of a toadstool. One of the team’s members, Arabella, a well-to-do sort with arcane interests, is frequently shown wearing white. Malbaster has a white-haired zombie assassin in his employ. Delightfully, his name is Bartleby, and he gets a laugh-out-loud line, as he sips tea after an attempted killing. The opium that drives much of the story is also white, sustaining a dark view of the color. And Ahab is further away from white than ever as his whalebone peg was lost in his watery travails, having been replaced with one of wood. In addition, the darker-skinned people in this tale are done dirt by their so-called betters, white leaders like JJ Astor and the city government. George rides an actual white horse at one point.


It is one of the good guys who wields this Fang Bieri – an African throwing knife – image from the Pitt Rivers Museum

Dreams come in for some attention. Arabella Dromen has a name that is positively dreamy. She is working on a book based on her daydreams and hallucinations, helped along by considerable intake of opium, the pipe being referred to as a dream-stick.

She is not alone in enjoying the odd pipe, or maybe constant pipe. The drug trade that made Astor so many millions was a major problem in the mid nineteenth century, as it is today. Malbaster uses it to control his gang of hooligans. Running the operation does not seem to keep those at the top from accessing the best things the city has to offer. There is a lot of anti-immigrant and racist feeling extant at the time. Not Muslims or Mexicans but Irish, Germans, Catholics, and the ever-popular black population. Seneca Village was an actual community begun by blacks, in which they started their own churches and schools. Non-exclusive, the place attracted others who had been shunned by polite society, Irish and Germans in particular. They established a functioning integrated community, owned land, and thus could vote. A young educator from the historical town is given a cameo. Too bad it all was torn down to make up a piece of Central Park. Note is made of a real organization, The Order of the Star-Spangled Banner, that would fit in quite nicely in the world we live in today. They would later become the “Know-Nothing Party,” for real, which should tell you all you need to know about them.


Ahab watching the sea– image from Acculturated.com

At times, [Malbaster] was asked to speak, and it was evident he was no orator. His vocabulary was limited, but he spoke in such vague generalizations that the throngs of his compatriots found in his words enough room to nurture their own grievances and fears. His message was one of selfishness. “Life and resources and wealth are limited. They should be only for those of us who resemble those of us. All others should be driven out and/or dispatched of. A simple enough ideology for the masses.

The notion of fake journalism is making the rounds today, on the one hand by the guilty looking to distract the public from reports of their crimes by claiming that all non-obsequious coverage is somehow unfair, but also nicely practiced by allies of said criminals, who have no apparent qualms about making up fantasies to feed the public, and repeating the falsehoods of their heroes. It is to a dark purpose. At least as portrayed here, the fake news of the 1853 penny press was less about securing partisan advantage than it was about securing readership with engaging, if less than entirely factual, stories.


Mitchell Map of New York - This is what Ford used as his geographical touchstone – image from Wikipedia

There is magic as well, partly from the mythic presence of a fabled manticore, partly from Malbaster’s reputed unnatural powers. There’s Bartleby, the zombie assassin. But another sort of magic enters as we near port. Does reality vs fiction necessarily offer a solely binary choice? Might there be shades of reality between the extremes? Arabella’s writings, however opium-fueled, appear to have a weird impact on the real world. George Harrow’s articles for the Gorgon’s Mirror also find some disturbing expression in reality. Harrow and Arabella are both writing to try to influence events.


Image from Swashbuckler-films.com

I write to see where her story is going, to find a place where I can meet her and regain control. What I’m looking for in the storyline is a crossroads, a juncture where the boundaries of our personal tales intersect with the tales of others. I must be on the lookout for it every time I put pen to paper. And when it presents itself, I must act swiftly and decisively.

There is also a scene in which Ahab’s made-up tales of the sea have a healing power. Does reality command writing or can writing command reality? Victims of the manticore are not simply killed or devoured, they are erased, as of by an author’s impulse. (reminding one of langoliers chowing down on extant reality)

Ford makes liberal use of nauticalisms throughout the book. A leaning house is said to be listing. Drunkenness is referred to as being not top o’ the mast. Drowsy eyelids are said to be at half-mast. There are many more, and they always made me smile.


A wonderfully tarted up image from ArcaneChrome at Deviant Art

Gripes? I suppose. While the characters may be huge fun, they are few fathoms deep. I thought Ford went a step too far in dismissing, as part of the meta element, the reappearance of character thought gone. Seemed very deus ex meta to me.

In short (well, too late for that, now, isn’t it?) Jeffrey Ford has written a hugely entertaining Nantucket sleighride of a read, with fun, fascinating characters, plenty of forward momentum, twists and turns, local and temporal color, relevant sociopoltical content, and even a consideration of the nature of evil. What’s not to like? Time to sharpen your mental harpoons, sing a few chanties, lay in some grog, and shiver your timbers. This is one battle with a great white beast you will not want to miss.


Publication – August 28, 2018

Review first posted – July 13, 2018

==============================EXTRA STUFF

Ahab’s Return is Jeffrey Ford’s tenth novel. He has published five short story collections, and has written a vast number of short stories. He has written a large number of non-fiction pieces, on various subjects, for diverse publications. He is the winner of multiple World Fantasy awards, a Nebula, an Edgar Allen Poe Award, multiple Shirley Jackson Awards and more.

Links to the author’s personal, Twitter and FB pages

Items of Interest
-----History.com - America’s First Multimillionaire Got Rich Smuggling Opium - by Erin Blakemore
-----Order of the Star-Spangled Banner
-----Seneca Village
-----The Indian Caves of Inwood Park
-----Greenland Whale Fisheries by The Weavers
-----A New Bedford Voyage - a wonderful lesson plan about whaling from the education department of the whaling museum in New Bedford, MA

Books by Melville available free on Gutenberg
-----Moby Dick; Or, The Whale - free on Gutenberg
-----Bartleby, the Srivener
-----Typee: A Romance in the South Seas
-----Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas

[Faith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a strange mess of a book. It's not that it wasn't entertaining, but I was unable to abandon myself to this multifaceted fantasy. I found it very strange.

Ahab managed to escape from the whale. After many adventures, including ghosts, a plague and an interlude of feather collecting, Ahab returned to America in 1853 and tracked his missing wife and son to New York City. He was also tracking Ishmael, who had written some crazy book about him that declared him to be dead. In New York, Ahab meets George Harrow, a penny dreadful writer who thinks that a series of fantastical articles can be loosely based on Ahab's search for the missing parties. From then on the story went sort of haywire for me. There was just too much stuff. There were nationalist extremists bent on eradicating Germans, Catholics and blacks. An opium kingpin named Malbaster led a gang of addicted children called the Jolly Host. Malbaster also controlled a zombie-like enforcer called Bartleby, who was last seen scuttling along the ocean floor on his way to Japan. And then there was the woman transformed into a manticore, with the face of a woman, the body of a predator cat and the tail of a scorpion. Finally, there were many references to the process of writing fiction, sharing plots and exercising imagination as a drug. On some level, this book may be a profound exploration of the nature of fiction, but these references might also have been a self indulgent exercise by the author.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great novel from one of our best, Jeffrey Ford. A wild, inventive romp featuring Ahab (yes that one, and he survived) unexpectedly showing up in Manhattan to look for his wife and son. It’s a story about story, its power and melancholy. It’s about the history of NYC and it’s about now and it’s about how we got to be in our current mess. All that and the book still manages to be a thrilling, mind-stretching adventure. I can’t recommend this book enough.

[QOH · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm still trying to figure out how to parse this book. If I read it as an allegory about an author and his creations in the 19th century, then it works. It also works as an allegory about addictions and obsessions and the perils of humbugging and/or unreliable narration. And within the context of allegory, I think it's a great book.

But as a novel, which is of course what it is--not as much. It doesn't pick up from Melville (whose work is quite witty and wry, for all that he goes on and on). It isn't a chick-lit Bildungsroman like Ahab's Wife. Read alone as a novel that weaves together fiction, history, racial relations, drug addiction, obsessions--that's a tall request from a short book. It's still well written and interesting, just at a remove (if I can't seize on any one story or arc as true, or at least true enough, it's hard to engage).

There are some very strong and capable female characters (they seem to be the most competent and least subject to irrationality), which was unexpectedly nice, especially in a kind-of follow up to a very male classic.

Feelings mixed. I do recommend it, though, and I'm interested in how others interpret it.

[Seb · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really, really enjoyed Jeffrey Ford's "Ahab's Return" because it is both a direct attack on the literary establishment (The "canon", if you will) and a deep reflection on fiction, similar to Paco Ignacio Taibo II's "Héroes convocados: manual para la toma del poder", where a journalist in a hospital call on his literary heroes to start a new revolution Mexico. The irreverence in choosing an American classic and turning its tragic figure into a "pulp" creature could only be amusing if it wasn't placed in a masterly crafted scenario of stories being written as well as re-written within the story itself. Far from being just another smart-ass adventure rip-off, it takes the reader in an almost Proustian game of hide and seek with her/his own literary memories and confronts her/him with the ultimate liberty of literature: fiction itself. Although "Ahab's Return" is a delightful read, it is also a writer's writer book, delving deep in the possibilities of freedom that lie within fiction, notwithstanding "genre". Highly recommended for the anarchist reader, who likes it when things blow up a little.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

Review here: http://www.danscanon.com/2021/02/ahab...

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

A return of Ahab recounted by a reporter who recounts outlandish tales for his serial newspaper, with a resulting narrative that grows increasingly strange and dreamlike, until I felt it blurred, and wasn't sure if the whole book was intended as the installments of an unreliable narrator printed in some hyperbolic tabloid. Which is to say it's great fun. And a delightful meditation on drugs, anti-immigrant racism, guilt, all told as a rollicking adventure.

[Jack Haringa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moby Dick is one of my all-time favorite novels, so this book was both at an advantage and facing high expectation when I tackled its pages. Luckily, Ford is a favorite writer and has a masterful grasp of both the historical and literary heritages that get represented in the novel. There are overtly fantastical elements, but also plausible historical components that make up the engine of this novel, and Ford's clean and lucid prose gives life to it. The narrator's voice is authentic, and the author has a challenge on his hands in making Harrow sound of his time but accessible to contemporary readers. It's a challenge he meets, and context enables this reader to picture the unfamiliar ("fid", for one) with little difficulty.

[Karen Heuler · Rating 5 out of 5]

The premise of this book is wonderful: Ahab is back in Manhattan years after a book written by Ishmael clearly showed Ahab’s death. He’s looking for his wife and son, and he enlists the aid of a pulp newspaper journalist, who uses Ahab’s history and stories to meet his own deadlines. Manhattan adores sensational press, and the mixture of real and fantastic is a true barometer of life in the city, which is desolate and awash in gangs and opium and creatures who are both real and unreal. “I used to think there was actual wonder in the world” is spoken by one of the minor characters, and wonders indeed shine through this outstanding book. Grit and grimness and low places map out an early Manhattan that was still a small town skulking in the bottom of the island, filled with marvelous and terrible tales. Our journalist drinks too much but he luckily meets some incredibly capable women as he battles otherworldly criminal elements. This book is, indeed, an actual wonder. There’s no small pleasure in the ongoing metafictional interplay between what is story and what is real as these characters charge into their plots with full vigor and mythic determination.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tantalizingly close to 5 stars, for sure, and maybe I'll change my rating by the time this review is done. This was such a surprise, and in a wonderful way. I have never read 'Moby Dick' and never will, but I know enough about the book to make this fantastical "sequel?" a rollicking good time. Ford knows his stuff, historically and literature-ally, but he stays just far enough away from facts and wades well enough and deeply into the fantasy to create a intriguing and masterfully told tale. I couldn't stop reading and was surprised at all the delightful, dangerous, and descriptive meanderings this story traversed. This is how you craft a worthy addendum when no one believes it could, or should, or would, be done.

[Sheri Sebastian-gabriel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jeffrey Ford never ceases to amaze me with his razor-sharp wit and attention to detail. He tells the story of a two-bit fabulist who encounters the not-dead Captain Ahab from Melville's Moby Dick. Soon enough, the plot itself rivals a story our hokum-puveyor might write for the Gorgon's Mirror. A delightfully quirky romp. I loved it.

[Steve Shilstone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Murder and mayhem are afoot in 1850s Manhattan.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a supremely weird book, & my reading time was rather disjointed, so I’m giving it the benefit of the doubt, but it also made me ponder things while I wasn’t reading it, which has to count for something, no?

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wasn't expecting this book. It's sort of meta, a bit like dime store novel and lot better than I was expecting. I'm rather curious why I haven't read Jeffrey Ford before.

[Anna Tambour · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are a rare few books that read as if they were struck into being by lightning, they’re so timely. And there’s no telling when this timeliness will strike. Just out in paperback is a novel that first came out in hardback and e-book editions last year, but over the past few months, days, hours--reads so newly struck, so uncannily relevant--
Yet---

Cut the anchor!
Only madness can explain why something so perfectly built for a storm, this storm here and now, has been shackled, not even to a real anchor but a mass of fouling--the dead weight of one of those great books people should have read.

Ahab’s Return: or, The Last Voyage was launched a year ago, and though the title and descriptions naturally lead you to believe this a spinoff of Moby Dick, that’s not only wrong, but not only has Jeffrey Ford himself had to say you don’t have to have read that tome to read this, but, Oh, the irony. In Ahab’s Return, an insider, a real person fictionalised in Moby Dick says, ’“That book is a farce. I’ve read it.”

“But you are not Daggoo,” said Ahab. “I remember that.” “No, I am Madi. I have always been Madi... All I brought with me was my name, Madi.”
“I was joyful to be alive. I could go to America a free man and make my way.”
“And then you got here,” I said.

The ‘I’ is George Harrow, the narrator. also a writer, but unlike Ford, he’s a star reporter, an expert in a very particular art and craft.

“You might be the finest confabulator on this godforsaken island.” [says his boss, the editor of the Gorgon Mirror]

His take on that?
“Whereas another might have taken the term to mean liar, I understood it to be an appellation of artistic prowess.”
New York at that time needed no sensational tweaking to titillate, outrage, horrify readers. So Harrow’s readers wanted entertainment, nothing more. And he’d lived as shallow a life as possible, till Ahab turned up looking like something from the dead, but very much alive-- and greed for a sensational story made him a story:

“My detractors didn’t realize that I, George Harrow, was not a do-gooder, an abolitionist, a friend to the downtrodden, a lover of Catholics or the sons and daughters of Africa, nor was I in league with the idiocy of the Know-Nothings, indiscriminate haters of anything other than themselves. No, I was merely an opportunist”’

I know that my take on this novel might appear cockeyed to some, especially those who see it as a story about writing and writers, the drama needing to center on the tension between literature and hackery in which the most dramatic scene should be the belly-button picking duel--(which has at its core, its own insolvable adjudication problem--more ink-stained lint or more intense stain?

Perhaps because I find this as fascinating a genre as the other current trend--comedians who laugh onstage at their own jokes--I blinded myself to these possibilities, or maybe I couldn't give a shit as the movers and destroyers, cover-uppers and couldn't give a shits create history anew, history that too many intend to be a replay of the most terrifying evils of the past. History repeating itself is nothing new, but a novel that's both historical and ever more acting like an 'only the names have been changed' piece of investigative journalism liable to spur the charge: FAKE!--that's either remarkably prescient on the author's part, or fucking supernatural.

If I'm wrong and the similarities and parables I see actually obscure the author's intention to write something to appeal to the reader who needs smelling salts in a seminar, I can only say that I'm truly grateful that Ford wrote this so acrobatically. I do know that there are many levels I did not reach, as I have not read Moby Dick, and know that Ford is playing with us when his characters put it down.

Instead, passages like this made me think, not of books, but of real people, rallying up, stirring up, lying, conniving, terrorising, now:

“It was said that Malbaster was not born from the womb of a woman, but instead coalesced like an angry storm cloud during a riot in the Five Points brought on by nationalist factions attacking a dance where Irish and colored mixed . . . Malbaster, an evil for the ages. I saw him as more a petty criminal with a murderous streak, who used said intolerance as a means of financial gain.”’

No narrator can pick the core of the story they tell, so I'll say that from my pov, it's Seneca Village. There is a manticore in this novel, a killer of marvelously oddball tooth movement, yet it is a banana slug compared to the efficiency of erasure of a place with such significant history that, like Belsen, all you'd need to say is the name.. If only they weren't blacks who owned land and had the right to vote, the atrocities visited upon them as they were dispossessed for the rich, would be spoken of as 'biblical' by Americans. I knew nothing about Seneca Village's tragedy before this novel, yet history does, as it keeps repeating itself, Yet who’s to know if history’s grassed over?

This novel is, I think damned for some time now, and periodically ever after, to be so relevant, it's creepy, and fascinating. Indeed, from the first paragraph, it's a veritable squid-hook of a multi-pronged approach. Bad stuff and weird shit happens. Truth is caught in a classic quicksand trap. A mythic beast can still chew through a man's neck fast as a woodchuck could chew corn.

What I haven't said is how enjoyable this was to read. I get a quite visceral thrill from thrown into a different time and place. Ford doesn't just throw a few old-time words in, and it's not just the dialogue, but the way someone handing something to someone else would be expressed. Nothing else can match it, including duds, for making you feel you're a fly on the wall, and this is no play.

His does play, however. I can't help wondering what his expression was, via Ford, George Harrow the confabulist said:

“Don’t you understand that there can be a certain truth in fiction?”


___________________________________________________________

I didn’t mention that there are so many passages that I wanted to revisit, I had to buy not only the hardback when it came out, for the physical pleasure of reading, but the e-edition because my hard copy started looking like a porcupine.

(and finally, an apology. I love Jeffrey Ford's writing, yet this novel stands out as particularly important, a milestone of a novel, something that belongs with Dos Passos and Cather, Sinclair Lewis and Dreiser. I would hate for it, so readable, so unpretentious, so necessary, to miss the readership it deserves. And so I've wasted many hours and many drafts composing what in the end, I flung upon this 'page as a matter of urgency, as another mention and recommendation, for every one counts and is necessary in this growing storm.)

But is this novel even a novel?
Ford has often written of something unbelievable but true, a lifeform that's no myth, something that looks like one thing but is something else. This time he's created that very thing--a historical novel that's being born again, faster and faster, as breaking news and news that doesn't break but lives like a guinea worm, under the surface, but unerring in achieving its dreadful goal.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
Ahab's back, looking for his wife and son.

Yes, that Ahab, the crazed captain who went down with the White Whale.

He miraculously survived and has finally made his way home. He turns up at the Gorgon's Mirror, a New York City tabloid newspaper, looking for Ishmael, the writer who killed Ahab off in his novelization of their adventures. Ishmael is gone but hack writer Harrow sees dollar signs behind Ahab's improbable story.

All Ahab wants now is to find his beautiful wife and teenage son

Harrow gets his boss to fund the quest and he and Ahab go on an adventure into the heart of New York City's Five Points, encountering a drug cartel protected by juvenile addicts and the manticore, a mythological creature (pictured on the book cover). They are joined by Ahab's harpooner Madi, stylized as Daggoo by Ishmael, the staunch street urchin Marvis, and a patchwork-coat wearing female writer and opium-eater, Arabella.

Harrow is in over his head, plunged into a world of ghoulish murders perpetrated by Malbaster and attacked by his zombie-like creature Bartleby. Harrow admits that, in a gunfight, he is as "useless as Millard Fillmore." Luckily, he has the African Madi and the plucky women to protect him.

Ahab's Return by Jeffry Ford reminded me of Terry Pratchett's Dodger, a fun blend of fantasy and literary personages in a historical fantasy. And also Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next novels in which literary characters exist in an alternative world.

John Jacob Aster's opium shipping empire, a forgotten multi-racial and multi-cultural village torn down to make Central Park, the Know Nothing anti-immigrant nativist movement, all figure into the story.

The plot hinges on an interesting concept of fictioneers writing plotlines that become reality.

"I am a devotee of the works of Emerson and believe he's professing that the mind is a reailty engine--it creates reality or at least in some part it helps to create reality." Arabella in Ahab's Return

I enjoyed the novel as great escapist fun. I received a free book from the publisher through a LibraryThing giveaway.

[Kris · Rating 2 out of 5]

I happened upon this ARC at work. I am a fan of Moby Dick....I even took a semester class in college dedicated to all it’s metaphors and hidden meanings. So when I saw this I had a little chuckle to myself as the premise is pretty great. In this book Captain Ahab returns to the mainland to confront the author of Moby Dick, his former ship mate, Ishmael. However, once I got a bit beyond the intro and into the book it seemed to zig and zag in ways that made me question the authors path. By the end I felt the plot went off the rails and made me question the editor. So if your up for a another Ahab adventure that’s more fantastical and unbelievable than the original this may be the book for you. I however am going to stand by the original and remember Ahabs last moments as he is pulled into the ocean depths. I give this book: ⭐️⭐️

[J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I truly wanted this to be a better book.
It just...wasn’t.
In order to tell you why, I have to spoil something for you—

Ahab is barely in the book.

And the Ahab that shows up is a mere shadow of what you want. Now, admittedly, there’s a reason for that, but it’s a serious letdown.

The plot that *is* here winds up being okay, but stretched farther than it needs to be, continuously losing momentum just when it gets going because the main character goes back to his house (I seriously lost count of how often this happened). Because of this, the book feels thin and tedious more often than not, and more often than it should, given the details.

There is a lot to like here in the concept, but the execution falls short.

[ManOfLaBook.com · Rating 4 out of 5]

For more reviews and bookish posts please visit http://www.ManOfLaBook.com

Ahab’s Return: or, The Last Voyage by Jeffery Lord is a novel, imagining the famous Captain Ahab coming back from, what thought to have been, his last sail. Mr. Lord is an award winning author and teacher.

Captain Ahab finally manages to return to Nantucket, only to discover that due to a book his first mate, Ishmael, wrote, he is believed to be dead. Searching for his wife and son, the captain reaches New York City where he meets a tabloid reporter George Harrow. Harrow makes a deal with the captain to help him search, but write about it in The Gorgon’s Mirror.

During their search, Harrow and Ahab meet unexpected challenges. They experience paranormal activities, audacious racism and the newly formed drug culture.

I did not know what to expect from this book, of course I know about Herman Melville’s Moby Dick even though, I have to admit, I have never read the full length novel (but I will… one of these days). The idea of Ahab’s Return: or, The Last Voyage by Jeffery Lord was intriguing, but it was something completely different than what I was expecting.

The book Moby Dick, it seems, was written as a true tale of adventure by Ishmael, only that he exaggerated a bit – but if you’ve ever read any of those tales, even today, who can blame him. To everyone’s surprise, Captain Ahab shows up, maybe not as crazy as he seems in the book, but certainly not the sanest man either.

The story works best if the reader keeps in mind that this is a fun adventure book, Ahab is trying to reconnect with his family, angry about his unfair portrayal in a best-selling book, while giving you a glimpse of early New York City. The author tries to tie contemporary issues (racism, opioids, and more) to this story while keeping with the themes of Moby Dick (defiance to authority, friendship, death).

I enjoyed reading about New York City (Manhattan) in the 1850s, a rough place full of richness, poverty, and gang elements. There are many elements of magic and mysticism to this novel, something I was not expecting which are central to the story and the themes which, I believe, the author was trying to project.

I found the author’s research into the history of New York City fascinating (all explained in the notes in the end, which expended my “to read” list by many books), the Indian Caves (Inwood Park), the Crystal Palace and other locations which do not exist today. He even referred to the streets by their old name by finding a map, and of course letting the astute reader know where to find it.

This is a very entertaining and thought provoking book, it was a lot of fun to read and follow the intriguing characters, new and old, which the author imagined. The nar

[Leif · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jeffrey Ford has written some deeply strange books in his time, and some absolutely fantastic, world-changing short stories. In the latter he demonstrates his light touch, and stories like "The Annals of Eelin-Ok" or "The Empire of Ice Cream" are absolutely and without a doubt worth anyone's time. Their sense of nostalgia is enormous and compelling; melancholia's delicate presence is palpable in them.

Ford's novels, on the other hand, have been a more mixed affair for me. I remember The Physiognomy as a deeply strange and in some ways violent book, and had trouble engaging with later novels like The Shadow Year. Yet I found Ahab's Return a more than compelling read brimming over with a deep love for American literature, especially that of Herman Melville, while maintaining a firm grip on the contemporary and historical resonance of the white privilege in which America was founded. To see Ford so completely embrace the complex realities of social power while returning to play with figures of literary history and historical records.

The best audience for this one is probably readers who love genre fictions and American fiction equally, with a hefty dose of fantastical retrofiction (ala the many resurrections of 19th century texts that have been semi-popular for authors, but not readers) or postmodernism. It's a deft and quirky book, but well-written enough to grab me in - and I'm not too kindly disposed towards Melville! Give it a try, I say!

[Colline Vinay Kook-Chun · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ahab’s Return has not been written in the vein of the modern novel. Instead it reflects the style and manner of storytelling that was fashionable when Moby Dick was written. The references to a manticore During the story require the reader to suspend reality and accept that this mythical creature is part of the characters’ experience. As I was reading the story, the exaggerations and exploits of some of the characters in the novel reminded me of the prose I have read in some classical English literature.

Some of the references to a manticore are linked to the creation of a story by an author and the metaphor encouraged me to think of the time when I read the literature at university that explored more than one meaning within a tale. Not only is Ford telling us a story, but he is also subtly offering an opinion on how the story being written inspires the author’s creativity.

Ahab’s Return is a literary novel that may not be everyone’s cup of tea. It is not a novel that can be read in a couple of hours on a lazy Saturday afternoon. Instead, it is a story that would be appreciated by those readers who enjoy the classics and who enjoy stories that have a deeper meaning to them. I enjoyed this novel for that reason. Not all readers would enjoy the tale but, as a person who enjoyed Moby Dick, I found it interesting to follow the suggested story of Ahab and Ishmael.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had mixed feelings about this book. It was a pretty good yarn, taken just as a yarn, with a hefty dose of fantasy and fable thrown in. The narrator of the story, Harrow, is a writer who describes the tales he writes for a sensationalist news rag as “confabulations” and that’s pretty much what this novel is. It bears little relation to Moby-Dick, and I was unable to mesh the Ahab in this book with the Ahab that Melville created; ditto with Ishmael. There is a thematic parallel in the element of a quest to conquer a malevolent “beast” — in this case a human one — but it’s a shallow comparison. On a positive note, there are some intriguing speculations on the nature of storytelling itself, and the power of story to shape reality. Also, the little glimpses the author gives into the actual history of New York are quite interesting — such as the former existence of a settlement called Seneca Village on land that is now part of Central Park — and he has done some good background research to capture the flavor of New York City in a rough-and-tumble era. Read it and judge for yourself.

[Justin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have 2 regrets revolving around this novel. This first is that I waited 2 years to read it. Why did I do that? I love Ford's work...did I just want to always keep something new of his on the shelf? I don't know. My second regret is that it took me 2 weeks to read it. That one can be explained, at least, as teaching in the midst of a pandemic is so draining that I often can't handle fiction on school nights.

I don't regret reading it, of course, because it's Ford and it's great. This one has Ahab and a manticore (not a spoiler, as the cover gives both away) but is about the nature of fiction and the nature of love. It's playful and scary and funny and profound. It reminds me of his The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque, which is also fantastic. If I ever have to write a thesis again, I would absolutely write it about Ford. His work is always worth reading and I'm sure worth reading multiple times. One of these days, I'll have to go back. For now, I have a novella from him on my shelves (Out of Body) and there's a new story collection coming in the first half of next year. That makes me very happy.

[Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting concept, Capt. Ahab resurrected and returned to confront Ishmael, but the dialogue and general tone of this book made me cringe too frequently to enjoy it. Much of the tone struck me as quippy/YA/reddit-style humor and all of the characters shared the same voice. If this was intentional, teasing the meta-commentary of the novel, I could forgive it, but I don't think that's the case.

The plot contrivances I can forgive because that certainly felt intentional. Ford had an interesting idea here, exploring fiction vs. reality through a writer's adventures and chronicles thereof. Especially as an homage to Melville, whose characters (not limited to those of Moby Dick, either) are referenced throughout, I can appreciate the book. But overall execution fell flat and there were some very corny moments and 20th/21st century characterizations and ideals that felt shoe-horned into an alleged 19th century plot.

*I couldn't help comparing this with David Mitchell's works and how much better Mitchell writes while I was reading. The Thousand Autumns, Number 9 Dream, Cloud Atlas, and Utopia Avenue all dance around a similar subject in a much more impressive way

[Amy Navarre · Rating 2 out of 5]

First, I had never read Moby Dick in its entirety and prior to receiving this free Advanced Readers Copy from the 2018 ALA Conference (disclaimer: this review contains my honest opinion), I had never even attempted to read Moby Dick in its entirety. Receiving this ARC inspired me to make such an attempt, but I was unsuccessful. That being said, I can attest that this book can be enjoyed without much prior knowledge of the classic it follows. Also, this book is an easier read and the story does move at a much faster pace. However, the arc of this story isn't a calm lob of a rainbow, it's more the jagged cliffs of a mountain range. This book is packed with action. I enjoyed the concept of this story better than the actual story itself.
Despite being a historical fiction novel, this story has relevance in today's sociopolitical context.
My favorite character is Mavis and I would gladly read her story should Mr. Ford ever be inspired to write it.

[Julia · Rating 3 out of 5]

When Captain Ahab suddenly walks into George Harrow's newspaper office and announces that, not only did he not die in pursuit of Moby-Dick, but he requires Harrow's assistance in locating his son, their adventures lead through New York's seedy 1850s underworld and reunite the reader with several familiar characters from the original classic.

I wanted to like this novel so badly as I have a soft spot for parallel/companion novels, but it was just too ... odd. It went off into directions of farcical zaniness and magical realism that I just couldn't find the energy to follow. In addition, there is a distinct lack of 19th-century feel to the entire novel. I have, however, awarded one additional star for the kick-ass women!

I received this ARC via LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program.

[Barrita · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quiero mucho a Jeffrey Ford pero creo que esto cayó más allá de mis límites personales de weird. Me estaba costando seguir la trama y llegó un punto en que todo era demasiado inverosímil y absurdo hasta para mi.

Si tiene un sentido de aventura y de jugar con la verdad cuando se cuenta una historia, cosas que me gustan en mis lecturas, pero también es un caos de personajes y ocurrencias.

Creo que puede tener más impacto en alguien que le tenga más cariño a Moby Dick y en general, supongo, a gente que tiene aprecio y/o conoce los lugares que se mencionan. Si me llamó la atención que se trata de Ahab sobreviviendo misteriosamente pero mi conclusión es que es mejor para todos que no lo haya hecho en la historia original.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

An ARC giveaway in exchange for an honest review.
NYC - Winter, 1853:
George Harrow is working late at the offices of The Gorgon's Mirror, the penny press for which he writes. He's trying to come up with ideas to confabulate a story to meet deadline.
The door opens and in walks a tall, scraggly man with a whalebone leg.
Captain Ahab is alive!
The captain is looking for Ishmael, a former shipmate and the author of "Moby Dick". Ish had been the copy editor of the Mirror whilst writing the book. He no longer works there.
While talking to Ahab, George discovers that the captain is also searching for his wife and son. They had moved from Nantucket to New York after learning that the captain and crew had died during the hunt with the great white whale.
This from the book that now seems to have been written with a certain amount of license.
Sensing a story (or stories), Mr. Harrow suggests that he might be of help, along with the newspaper's backing, to the captain. Since Ahab has no resources and doesn't know the area.
What follows is an adventure saga on a grand scale.
Their journey will take them through the streets of mid-19th century New York. The city is wonderfully rendered in these pages.
They will meet many interesting characters. Venture to the Five Points area, made infamous by Martin Scorcese's film, where they meet a treacherous gang leader and his nefarious crew of henchman.
Brimming with violence, danger, mystery, mysticality, suspense, love and true-to-the-period writing, "Ahab's Back" is an extraordinary fable from a highly gifted author.
Hugely recommend to EVERYONE! : )

[Jett Bailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful odyssey through old New York as Melville's Ahab —whose demise at the end of "Moby Dick" was a fabrication of former First Mate, and now opium-addled cheap novelist, Ishmael— searches for his wife and son, and maybe a little revenge. Assisting Ahab in his search is George Harrow, writer of tabloid nonsense for the sensationalist paper "The Gorgon's Mirror". A misfit band of characters end up joining Ahab in his quest as the search leads deeper and deeper into the shadowy depths of New York's seedier side; abducted children, opium dealers, the city's most infamous gang and their notorious, larger-than-life leader, and a frightening beastie straight out of mythology.

Filled with adventure, misadventure, intrigue, bittersweet reunions, weirdness and dark humor, "Ahab's Return: or, The Last Voyage" is a grand yarn and a fantastic late night page turner.

[Badi Ddu · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a mad cap “sort of” historical fiction, touched with fantasy. George Harrow, a writer for a yellow journalism tabloid in 1850s Manhattan, encounters a rough-looking character sporting an ivory peg leg. The old guy identifies himself as Captain Ahab of the Pequod, thought lost during his pursuit of the white whale Moby Dick. The pair team up with a clever young woman of means, a swashbuckling woman who serves as their protector, and one of the “harpooneers” of the Pequod , who was also chronicled as lost at sea, to rescue Ahab’s son front a famous gang leader in lower Manhattan. A phantasmagorical epic adventure from 1855 New York.