Preparing the Ghost: An Essay Concerning the Giant Squid and Its First Photographer

Nonfiction, Science & Nature, Nature, Fish & Ocean Life, Marine Life
Cover of the book Preparing the Ghost: An Essay Concerning the Giant Squid and Its First Photographer by Matthew Gavin Frank, Liveright
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Author: Matthew Gavin Frank ISBN: 9780871402899
Publisher: Liveright Publication: July 7, 2014
Imprint: Liveright Language: English
Author: Matthew Gavin Frank
ISBN: 9780871402899
Publisher: Liveright
Publication: July 7, 2014
Imprint: Liveright
Language: English

Memory, mythology, and obsession collide in this “slyly charming” (New York Times Book Review) account of the giant squid.

In 1874, Moses Harvey—eccentric Newfoundland reverend and amateur naturalist—was 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 Harvey’s 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 Harvey’s 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.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Memory, mythology, and obsession collide in this “slyly charming” (New York Times Book Review) account of the giant squid.

In 1874, Moses Harvey—eccentric Newfoundland reverend and amateur naturalist—was 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 Harvey’s 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 Harvey’s 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.

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