Sena Jeter
Naslund was born in Birmingham, Alabama.
After graduating from Birmingham-Southern, she was accepted by
the 
prestigious
Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa where she received
her MA and PhD degrees in creative writing. In 1971, she was
hired as a Visiting Professor in the MFA program at the University
of Montana. The following year, she accepted the teaching position
she now holds at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, where
she directed the creative writing program and was awarded the
university's first Distinguished Teaching Professor honor. Sena's
fiction has been published in such journals as The Paris Review,
The Iowa Review and The Michigan Quarterly Review (where she
won the Lawrence Prize for fiction). Her books include Sherlock
in Love (1993) and The Disobedience of Water (1999). Ahab's
Wife or The Star-Gazer, published by William Morrow is her
latest work and she lives in Lousiville with her husband John.
Pageonelit.com: Tell us about your epic
novel "Ahab's Wife? Why the double title "Ahab's
Wife" or "The Star-Gazer?
Sena Jeter Naslund: Ahab's
Wife is the story of Una Spenser's courageous and adventurous
life. She disguises herself as a cabin boy in order to work on
a whale ship, and she survives an ordeal at sea, when her ship
is 
staved by a whale. Though
she experiences trauma and loss, she eventually builds a new
life for herself on Nantucket. The title Ahab's Wife is a simple
label for a complex woman who becomes a "star-gazer,"
that is, one who contemplates her own place in the universe.
Pageonelit.com: How old were you when you
when you first picked up a copy of "Moby Dick"
and how much of your literary roots were developed from Melville's
book? What is it about this book from all the other books written
over the past 200 years that spoke to you enough to tell this
woman's story?
Sena Jeter Naslund: I first
read Moby-Dick when I was about 13, and I liked it enough
to write my first high school book report on it. I think I was
in awe of Ahab, as a powerful though tragic figure. And I was
enchanted by the sea, as the stage for his struggles. When I
read, more recently, Ahab's references to a wife and child whom
he loves (but who are unnamed) I felt he was a character who
might have had a very interesting wife, one with her own story
to tell. While I loved Moby-Dick, I also regretted that
no women were included in the microcosm represented on the Pequod
by men of all colors and creeds. I wanted women to be a part
of this grand imaginative picture.
Pageonelit.com: I read where you have said
the structure for Ahab's Wife came from the first sentence
-- Will you elaborate and explain?
Sena Jeter Naslund:
The first sentence, which came to me out of the blue, is "Captain
Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last." While the
sentence implies a certain structure to the novel of three husbands,
I didn't know who either the first or the last husbands would
be. But I trusted the voice and met the other characters of the
novel as Una did. Of course there were many surprises for us
both along the way.
Pageonelit.com: While composing "Ahab's
Wife", how did you pay homage to Melville's classic
while at the same time creating your own literary piece? What
would you hope Mr. Melville would say after reading your story?
Sena Jeter Naslund:
I've tried to be respectful not only of the "facts"
of Moby-Dick, such as the
information that Ahab lost his leg during the second voyage after
his marriage and that he lost his life on the third voyage, but
also to the grand questing, suffering spirit of the book. Unlike
Melville, I believed that a person could triumph over the human
condition of physical vulnerability and mortality. Una responds
to the tragedies of her life not by striving to destroy what
has wounded her but by her effort to go forward and create her
life anew. She suffers a great deal and she lives in a very imperfect
world of slavery and accident, but she does not let those realities
isolate her or turn her life into bitterness. The natural world
of sea and sky, both by day and by night, offers her consolation.
Pageonelit.com: How long did this book take
to write from conception to final page (666 total pages) and
was there ever an editor that asked for the story to be cut back?
Sena Jeter Naslund:
I spent two years writing the first draft of Ahab's Wife and
two years revising it. My wonderful editor, Paul Bresnick, suggested
not only cuts but additions. We worked together extremely well.
Actually I feel it is our book, rather than just my book.
Pageonelit.com: I congratulate you on a
wonderful masterpiece. The only word that comes to mind is breathtaking.
Do you have place at home for all of the literary awards that
will be coming your way? How will you follow this book?
Sena Jeter Naslund:
Of course I'm very happy when any reader thinks of Ahab's Wife
as a masterpiece, as your question suggests. I designed the book
to be a companion to Moby-Dick, but also to be an independent,
stand-alone novel in its own right. A reader need not have read
Moby-Dick in order to enjoy Ahab's Wife. I wanted to create
not just a fascinating, page-turning adventure, but a work of
art. The book has been praised by a great many fellow novelists,
by scholars, and by reviewers whose, opinions I respect, and by
ordinary readers, many of whom have thanked me, as I tour about
the country, for having written this novel. It gave me great
pleasure to write Ahab's Wife, and I'm very happy that it has
given so many people great pleasure to read it. Both pleasures
have filled me with confidence and energy as I begin my next
novel, which will be a civil rights novel set in Birmingham,
Alabama, where I grew up.
Pageonelit.com: And last but not least,
why do you write?
Sena Jeter Naslund:
Why do I write? I seem to have been born to write. Listening
to stories, being read to, my own reading have expanded my mind
and soul. Writing, for me, seems the natural complement to reading
and is a necessary companion for a full life.My thanks to you
for asking these wonderful questions, and my invitation to readers
to come by and say hello at my future tour stops.
