About the Book
Mercy, fifteen years old, is the last of the Rathbone whaling clan. Her father has been lost at sea for nearly ten years—ever since the last sperm whale was seen off the coast of Connecticut. As Mercy’s memories of her father grow dimmer with each passing day, she spends more of her time in the attic hideaway of her reclusive cousin Mordecai. But when a strange and threatening visitor turns up one night, Mercy and Mordecai are forced to flee and set sail on a journey that will bring them deep into the haunted history of the Rathbone family.
From the depths of the sea to the lonely heights of the widow’s walk; from the wisdom of the worn Rathbone wives to the mysterious origins of a sinking island, Mercy and Mordecai’s enchanting journey will bring them to places they never imagined possible.
About the Author :
Janice Clark is a writer and designer living in Chicago. She grew up in Mystic, Connecticut (land of whaling and pizza) and has lived in Montreal, Kansas City, San Francisco, and New York, where she earned an MFA in writing at NYU. Her short fiction has appeared in Pindeldyboz and The Nebraska Review, and her design work is represented in the Museum of Modern Art. The Rathbones, which she also illustrated, is her first novel.
Review :
“A remarkable tale, both epic and intimate. . . . Beautifully crafted and elegantly told. A siren song of a story.”
—Erin Morgenstern, bestselling author of The Night Circus
“Unforgettable. . . . Clark’s magic is in creating places that will linger with you, and make you long for the sea as if you, too, were spawned from an ancient whaling family.”
—The Chicago Tribune
“Clark writes a beautiful prose line, and the story, like the ocean, gets deeper, richer, and stranger the farther out you go. . . . The Rathbones is the most sui generis debut you’re likely to encounter this year. Think Moby-Dick directed by David Lynch from a screenplay by Gabriel Garcia Marquez . . . with Charles Addams doing the set design and The Decembrists supplying the chanteys.”
—The Millions, Most Anticipated Books of 2013
“Fabulous. . . . Cleverly crafted and a beguiling read. . . . [The Rathbones] will provide landlubbers many a diverting hour following the fortunes of this salty family. . . . Woven from many fantastical threads. . . . Part fairy tale, part sea yarn (with nods to Melville and Hemingway), part Homeric epic, it is also a story of star-crossed love, spiced with Gothic Poe-like details and a dollop of farce.”
—The Boston Globe
“This is a novel of vividly imagined settings: the Rathbone home, the islands Mercy and Mordecai visit, the ship on which they sail. Clark’s command of language and power of description are the novel’s great strengths. . . . Clark’s writing is unquestionably beautiful. . . . Be borne away by the novel’s lyricism and return from the journey refreshed.”
—The Dallas Morning News
“Dark and beautifully written, Janice Clark’s journey into family history captures the salty bonds of blood and sea, with all that lies beneath: from long held secrets to a broken covenant with the whale. As cautionary a tale as Melville’s, this is nevertheless a woman’s odyssey, one that creates a kind of longing that lingers far beyond its final pages. I’m telling everyone I know to read this one.”
—Brunonia Barry, bestselling author of The Lace Reader
“Full of longing and desire, The Rathbones is a wonder. Janice Clark has written a new chapter of American myth and family legend, an epic tale of adventure-of men who go off to sea and the women who wait for them until they can wait no longer. Mercy Rathbone, the 15-year-old girl whose odyssey is at the story’s core, is a brilliant creation, who will haunt your memory long after you turn the final page.”
—Keith Donohue, New York Times bestselling author of The Stolen Child
“The Rathbones is a gorgeous, gothic tale of a seafaring family and their dark secrets, passed through generations. Reminiscent of Melville, Janice Clark’s writing is inventive and astonishing in its sensuousness and attention to historic details.”
—Kathleen Kent, bestselling author of The Heretic’s Daughter
“If Faulkner’s Snopes family from Yoknapatawpha County had gone to sea, they might have become the Rathbones: generations of men whose impossible goal was to tame the ocean and slay its leviathans—but whose story, in the end, could only be told by a woman. Janice Clark has fit the whole world into this beautiful and capacious book, proving that it’s not only life that came from the sea, but language and love as well.”
—Daniel Wallace, bestselling author of Big Fish and The Kings and Queens of Roam
“[A] beautifully written, playful and intricate debut novel. Clark creates evocative descriptions . . . making her images and encounters between people especially vivid.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Drawing on Edgar Allan Poe, Homer and Herman Melville, an ambitious saga of lineage and whaling. . . . Simultaneously mythic, gothic and whimsical. . . . Clark imagines a rich hinterland to her briny story . . . [and] seduces with her vision and prose.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A story so grandly conceived that it recalls both the Odyssey and Moby-Dick and will make you taste the sea. . . . Tragic and magical, mythic and magisterial . . . an absorbing good read.”
—Library Journal
“Take a deep breath before you start reading The Rathbones, and renew regularly. Her book is vastly appealing in its primal reach back to the Odyssey and Moby-Dick. The Rathbones will draw in men and women alike, and at its close, many of those readers may well be inclined to take another deep breath—and start all over again.”
—Bookpage
