Product Overview
Memory, mythology, and obsession collide in this slyly charming (New York Times Book Review) account of the giant squid.
In 1874, Moses Harveyeccentric Newfoundland reverend and amateur naturalistwas the first person to photograph the near-mythic giant squid, draping it over his shower curtain rod to display its magnitude. In Preparing the Ghost, what begins as Harveys story becomes spectacularly slippery and many-armed (NewYorker.com) as Matthew Gavin Frank winds his narrative tentacles around history, creative nonfiction, science, memoir, and meditations about the interrelated nature of them all. In his full-hearted, lyrical style, Frank weaves in playful forays about his trip to Harveys Newfoundland home, his own childhood and family history, and a catalog of peculiar facts that recall Melville s story of obsession with another deep-sea dwelling leviathan. Totally original and haunting (Flavorwire), Preparing the Ghost is a delightfully unpredictable inquiry into the big, beautiful human impulse to obsess. 15 drawings
