Ahab's Wife or The Star-Gazer by Sena Jeter Naslund

The first sentence of this novel hooked me even though Ahab wasn't mentioned again for many pages, indeed: "Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last." It is the story of Una, plopped into the cast of characters living in the middle of the nineteenth century in Nantucket, Kentucky, and aboard the Pequod among other whaling ships. The plot was entirely predictable but I think that both the plot and the protagonist were excuses in which Naslund hid a Dickensian social commentary on the period roles of women, African Americans, homosexuals, and other marginalized groups in pre-Civil War America like dwarves and mentally handicapped individuals. Sprinkled through the pages are tensions caused when the someone doesn't fit or actually acts contrary to the status quo. The book is full of unresolved moral, religious, and ethical dilemmas. Girl babies named Liberty die twice and a boy baby named Justice lives although fatherless and not quite legitimate. The writing is quite good- the book made the New York Times Best Seller List. However, it seems overly long but then, perhaps because of its length and the time it affords for reflection along the way, it is provocative. It is also filled with surprising historical details like the basket of ceramic dildos offered to Una when, newly "married" to Captain Ahab she was left alone at home when the Pequod sailed away for a three year long voyage. I'm not sure why Ahab's Wife was subtitled the Star Gazer, though. That role belonged to another melancholy woman in Nantucket....