Description

Tashtego is one of the three harpooners aboard the Pequod, Captain Ahab’s ship in Moby-Dick. He is by no means a protagonist of the story, nor does he even achieve that distinction among the three harpooners. Yet he quickly became my favorite—perhaps because he is Native American, perhaps because of the rarity of breaking the stereotype of always seeing him on horseback across vast plains and instead enrolling, harpoon in hand, on a whaling ship whose sea voyage would last for years.

But Tashtego, like all the others except Ishmael, never returned. With this work I bring him back to life, if only in spirit, piloting the spirit of a ship perhaps built from the remains of the Pequod. For even the remnants of any shipwreck can serve to build something new—at least if we are likeTashtego.