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Writer's Read

Wynelda-Ann Shelton

Ahab's Wife or, The Star-Gazer

I chose this month's reading based on my New Year's resolution to read more books that weren't necessarily a quick read. I would read more books to broaden my horizons. In this doorstop of a book that takes its inspirational leap from Moby Dick, I did not expect to be hooked.

However, Ahab's Wife or, The Star-Gazer enchanted me. It starts with the statement, "Captain Ahab was not my first husband nor my last." With that, the reader is off and running in the life of Una, wife of Captain Ahab of Moby Dick fame.

That first sentence prepares the reader for more than the story of Ahab's wife, however. Like her initial declaration her story can be divided into three segments: before, during and after Ahab. Unlike the structure of the statement, however, Una, our heroine, doesn't start at the beginning.

Instead, time is elastic in this novel moving much like the ocean; time comes and goes, forward and backward, nipping at the toes of the reader. Even the tense of the writing is subject to changes, as pointed out by the chapter titled "Journey toward the Starry Sky, in Present Tense."

In lesser hands these tricks of time could tangle an author. Sena Jeter Nashund took the rules of time in fiction and broke them thoroughly, yet she was able to keep the reader within the story every step of the way. While the rules in fiction exist for a reason, Nashund reminds us that every rule can be broken in the hands of a master.

When I grow up, I want to write like that.