Ahab's Wife

Sena Jeter Naslund

Ahab's Wife was a powerful to me as Cryptonomicon. Those who know how I feel about Crypto know this is high praise. I love novels that make me exclaim out loud - either in distress, or in surprise. Naslund, with her gift for description and storytelling, made me exclaim several times, and wish, near the end, that I did not have to close the covers. Una, the wife of Ahab, will remain a memorable heroine. Simply sending her out to sea on a whaling ship would have created such a character, but Una becomes larger than that - larger than life, in fact.

This is a top 10 novel, hands down. Incidentally, I had initially hoped to read Moby Dick first, in order to have some background; I found however, that a cursery knowledge of MD was enough and in some cases, better. Some incidents came as a surprise because I had not read 'Una's Husband' :-) and those were extra jewels found in the sand.