The Jonah Man

In “a fine and harrowing adventure story” the captain of the Essex—the wrecked whaleship that inspired Moby Dick—tells of his survival and his culpability (The New Yorker).

Nantucket native George Pollard believes himself born to a life on the sea. Abandoning his family farm in favor of tour after tour on whaling boats, Pollard realizes his dream when he ascends to the captaincy of the Whaleship Essex. But the dream becomes a nightmare when the Essex is sunk by a whale in the South Pacific. Left adrift on the sea, Captain Pollard and his remaining crew struggle against heat, hunger, and thirst to survive. Faced with shocking open boat survival decisions no man should ever be forced to make, Pollard makes it home to Nantucket alive, only to face the condemnation of the community he left behind—and his own beleaguered conscience. “A powerful novel,” The Jonah Man is Captain Pollard’s account of a whaling hunt gone horrifically wrong (People).

“A scintillating tale that is also surprisingly believable. The Jonah Man is a memorable story indeed, a taut novel of man and the sea.” —The Plain Dealer

“In retelling a great sea chronicle, [The Jonah Man] breathes life into another age, and makes us aware of how much it is our own.” —Newsday

“The sight, the sound, the events, the tangle of kinships of a community that depended on the harsh harvest of whaling are brought to urgent life.” —Mary Lee Settle, author of Charley Bland

“A classic novel of the sea.” —San Francisco Chronicle