*Content Warning for novel: racism, child murder, drugs.*
A new(ish) entry into the grand tradition of reimagining or sequelising classic novels, Ahab’s Return explores what might have happened if Ahab had survived his final encounter with Moby Dick and eventually found his way back to the USA in search of the wife and son he abandoned for the sake of vengeance. And there was a manticore, and a gang-leader who was an avatar of racism.
It’s also a beautifully odd tale that shines a light on curious and hidden corners of New York’s history.
Let me be up front. Jeffrey Ford is one of the small pantheon of authors I revere. I fell in love with his writing many years ago when I read The Well-Built City Trilogy and I’ve been chasing that kind of literary high ever since. This review comes from the perspective of a fan.
I should also note I’ve never read Moby Dick. So, although I doubtless missed some references, at least this novel stood on its own merits for me and didn’t benefit from any fondness I might have had for the original work.
The story is told by George Harrow, a self-confessed writer of fabulous and invented stories for The Gorgon’s Mirror, a tabloid newspaper based in New York. (Or, as Harrow puts it — ‘the premiere five-cent illustrated rag of hokum in the great city of Manhattan’.)
In this reimagining, Ishmael is the author, as well as the narrator, of Moby Dick, and had published it with Harrow’s help. So, Harrow is quite astonished to be accosted by the supposedly deceased Captain Ahab, who, Odysseus-like, has returned from his long voyage and seeks to reconnect with his long-lost wife and son. Though cured of his lust for revenge, Ahab is still a stamping, violent, salt-scarred warrior who is more than willing to spill blood for his cause.
Harrow had been suffering a terrible case of writer’s block, so he offers his help to Ahab, in return for the right to accompany him on his quest and serialise his exploits in The Gorgon’s Mirror. This search through New York, soon pits the intrepid pair and their allies against a gang of vicious, murderous, opium-addicted thugs called the Jolly Host.
(Harrow is very much not intrepid, though he pursues his story with a dogged enthusiasm that even he cannot account for.)
Unlike the Odyssey, the bulk of this story is about what happens after a lost adventurer returns, not about the journey itself. Ahab apparently had a couple of strange adventures before and after his last battle with Moby Dick, but these tales are usually dealt with in a page or two. Much of the book is taken up with investigation, savage brawls, ambushes, night raids, kidnappings and murders. This is a book about New York, not the sea. And New York is dark, mysterious and full of monsters.
Did you know there is a set of tunnels in Manhattan called the Indian Caves? Have you heard of Seneca Village, an integrated settlement where Black people, white Irish people and various immigrants lived happily together and owned land? Or that the city of New York forcibly bought up this land to make Central Park, quite possibly to prevent the establishment of an enclave of free Black people who owned land and thus had the right to vote?
The fight against white supremacy and nativism is in many ways central to the novel, turning a personal quest into another chapter in the long, bitter and ongoing struggle against ignorance and hatred.
The Jolly Host are dedicated to driving out or destroying anyone who doesn’t fit a very narrow view of what an American should be—white and Protestant. They are led by Malbaster, a pale man with a balloon-like head who appears to embody the racism and toxic nationalism of historical movements such as the Know-Nothings. Malbaster, also known as The Pale King Toad, is a kind of sorcerer, as well as a drug-baron, torturer and gangster. He has a stumbling but seemingly unstoppable assassin at his beck and call. In some ways he recalls The Master from The Well-Built City trilogy—loquacious, megalomaniacal, possessed of weird abilities and strange whims.
The other monster, the manticore, is not quite as mythology paints her. She recites poetry while hunting her victims, and is equipped with three revolving layers of teeth, like a meat-grinder or a mechanised worm.
Joining Harrow and Ahab in their quest is a varied cast, including—a brace of old newspapermen, a reality-altering writer who claims to draw power from opium, a lethal street-kid, a redoubtable housekeeper, and a retired harpooner seeking to avenge two murders and protect Seneca Village.
The novel explores themes of racism (including why and how it is allowed to flourish), acceptance, family, responsibility, drug addiction, obsession, and the sometimes-antagonistic relationship between authors and their characters. Ford also returns to a favourite motif of playing with multiple layers of reality and symbolism that feed into each other until you’re not sure where one ends and the other begins. Did Harrow somehow take the character of Ahab from Ishmael? Did he create Ahab AND Ishmael himself? Does their reality arise from his pen or vice versa? Is the truth more complicated than that? How does Malbaster, who seems to be at least part urban legend himself, manage to exert control over some of these literary creations turned flesh? What happens when a writer participates in their own stories? Can we believe anything Harrow says when he admits to being a fabulist recording the experiences of a legendary seaman who is already strongly associated with tall tales?
“Harrow, if only you were the champion you sometimes appear to be in your writing,” said Ahab.
“Do you not know the book and the world are separate voyages?” I asked.
Though I distrusted his narration, I never once doubted the authenticity of Harrow’s voice, as a 19th Century New York journalist. Ford writes with easy authority, flowing through action scenes, conversations and descriptions with equal aplomb. He plays with metaphors and similes drawn from sea voyages and tall tales and conveys oceans of information with a few simple lines.
Glass rained to the floor and Ahab leaped to his feet, the boarding ax in hand, and lunged across the table. Madi was there in a flash. Then there was screaming and the sound of shattering crystal and china as the other patrons fled for the exit.
The brawling sagas of Ahab and Madi had passed like a thunderstorm and left me stranded in silence.
The Pale King Toad explored the cosmos of this, our story. Saw my creation and snatched it with impunity.
“You’d better start dreaming deeper, George Harrow.”
The result is a book you can enjoy as a good rollicking old-fashioned adventure (albeit with an updated social conscience), or as a bundle of mysteries to pick at, consider and brood over.
Check this book out if you enjoy great writing, original ideas, urban adventures, tall tales, or stories that explore hidden or forgotten parts of history.
Julia Kitvaria Sarene