Free Download Call Me Ishmaelle by Xiaolu Guo
English | January 6, 2026 | ISBN: 178474560X, 0802166490, 9780802166500 | True EPUB | 448 pages | 1.5 MB
From the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author, a feminist reimagining of Herman Melville's classic Moby-Dick through the eyes of one inimitable woman and a diverse, swashbuckling crew
I must work on a ship as a man . . . I must find freedom on the seas.
1843. Ishmaelle is born in a small village on the stormy Kent coast where she grows up swimming with dolphins. After her parents and infant sister die, her brother, Joseph, leaves to find work as a sailor. Abandoned and desperate for a life at sea, Ishmaelle disguises herself as a cabin boy and travels to New York.
Years later, as the American Civil War breaks out, Ishmaelle boards the Nimrod, a whaling ship led by the obsessive Captain Seneca, a Black free man of heroic stature who is haunted by a tragic past. Here, she finds protectors amidst the bloody male violence of whaling and discovers a mysterious bond between herself and the white whale who claimed Seneca's leg.
Built on the bones of Melville's classic, Call Me Ishmaelle is a dynamic new tale, imbued with an eclectic crew-from a Polynesian harpooner to a Taoist Monk-and a powerful exploration of human nature, gender, man's place among the animals, and the nature of home.
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