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by Xiaolu Guo
From the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author, a feminist reimagining of Herman Melville's classic Moby-Dick through the eyes of one inimitable woman and a diverse, swashbuckling crew.
I must work on a ship as a man ... I must find freedom on the seas.
1843. Ishmaelle is born in a small village on the stormy Kent coast where she grows up swimming with dolphins. After her parents and infant sister die, her brother, Joseph, leaves to find work as a sailor. Abandoned and desperate for a life at sea, Ishmaelle disguises herself as a cabin boy and travels to New York.
Years later, as the American Civil War breaks out, Ishmaelle boards the Nimrod, a whaling ship led by the obsessive Captain Seneca, a Black free man of heroic stature who is haunted by a tragic past. Here, she finds protectors amidst the bloody male violence of whaling and discovers a mysterious bond between herself and the white whale who claimed Seneca's leg.
Built on the bones of Melville's classic, Call Me Ishmaelle is a dynamic new tale, imbued with an eclectic crew—from a Polynesian harpooner to a Taoist Monk—and a powerful exploration of human nature, gender, man's place among the animals, and the nature of home.
"Propulsive and immediate ... The depth is worthy of the source ... A rich addition to Melvilliana." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A spectacular retelling of Moby-Dick ... direct and elemental prose ... captivating ... Newcomers to Moby-Dick and Melville devotees alike will find much to love." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Thrilling, innovative, and revolutionary ... Ishmaelle's gender transformation challenges the social scripts that manufacture identity while highlighting the very real dangers of being a woman ... Balancing sentimentality and adventure, Call Me Ishmaelle speaks to those who long to feel at home in themselves." —Booklist
"A brilliantly written reordering of Moby-Dick, ambitious, brave, and strange, from the imagination of this natural-born storyteller. There's a cinematic, global sweep to its motion, and an unbridled energy and poetry to its dramatic words. The result is as animal and visceral and shape-shifting and subversive as the broad back of the mythic whale themselves." —Philip Hoare, author of Leviathan
"A glorious female-led retelling of a classic, combining seafaring adventure with beautifully immersive prose. Exploring gender identity, race and our relationship to the natural world, Xiaolu Guo reinvigorates Herman Melville's story while staying true to its heart." —Carmella Lowkis, author of Spitting Gold
This information about Call Me Ishmaelle was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Xiaolu Guo is the award-winning author of Village of Stone, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth, I Am China, A Lover's Discourse, Nine Continents, and Radical. She lives in London.
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