The Whale: A Love Story: A Novel, by Mark Beauregard, (Viking), 288 pages, release date 14 June, 2016
Mark Beauregard’s The Whale tells an imagined version of the relationship between Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne. That the two were neighbors and on-again, off-again friends is fact. That the two shared a homoerotic attraction is, if not quite fact, likely. Beauregard imagines the two men in a sort of 1850s “Brokeback Mountain,” with Melville embracing the pair’s shared feelings and Hawthorne denying that these feelings exist. In doing this, Beauregard draws on the actual correspondence between the men, weaving the texts of their letters into his narrative.
This novel is simultaneously heart-breaking and humorous. Melville, who dedicated Moby Dick to Hawthorne, longs for a closeness that Hawthorne is unable to offer. Melville gives himself over completely to his attraction to Hawthorne, pursuing the older writer as he writes the story of Ahab’s pursuit of the whale. Melville can be endearing, maddening, even obsessive. Hawthorne’s character is less well-developed, though Beauregard does a capable job of painting a picture of Hawthorne that makes Melville’s attraction understandable.
Reading Beauregard’s version of these two tales—one of unfulfilled love, the other of the creation of a ground-breaking novel—is a pleasure to read, both perceptive and believable. It also provides a lively portrait of the American literary scene and the midpoint of the 19th Century.
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