Evangeline Hussey, chowder maker extraordinaire and inn runner on Nantucket, is a figure briefly mentioned by Herman Melville in MOBY-DICK. In fact, the lovely, hard-working, “yellow-haired” woman feels fully formed as Melville describes her. While standing on her porch, she is approached by Ishmael and Queequeg as they search for warmth and food on a cold night.

In her debut novel, WILD AND DISTANT SEAS, Tara Karr Roberts takes that passage, slim as it is, and expands it to jump off into a four-generation tale of strong, wise women and the men they love and lose, the creative means with which they make a life for themselves, and their inherent need to both serve others and fend for themselves. Reading this book is like exploring history with a whole new perspective.

"As a lover of early American literature, I found this novel to be a truly revolutionary read.... WILD AND DISTANT SEAS is a beautiful book full of amazing people that pays great homage to the small paragraphs from which it took inspiration."

In MOBY-DICK, the Cape Cod area and the islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard are described in a way that has stuck in the imaginations of millions of readers who have wandered the cold seaside streets. But there’s hardly a female presence in the book, so WILD AND DISTANT SEAS brings us this tough, rough world from the perspectives of the women who ran everything on land so that men could fight with the mighty seas of the Atlantic.

Evangeline has never felt like a full member of the island community into which she has settled. The town is struggling as whaling starts to die down around 1849. Her husband, who originally built their home and business with her, is now lost at sea, and she is holding on to the inn with every fiber of her being. She has a gift, a supernatural ability to see and then reshape recent memories of everyone around her. With her remarkable skill, she is now a valuable asset, and no one would think to let such an odd and curious trinket go anywhere else.

A strange but ebullient sailor comes to the inn one night, proclaiming his name to be Ishmael and asking for room and board for him and his exotic mate, Queequeg. Evangeline becomes entranced with the two men, falling in love with Ishmael and intrigued by Queequeg’s bizarre rituals and his tattoos that tell a story. Once the men join Captain Ahab and go off to hunt the infamous white whale, Evangeline is left once again to restart her life after loss.

With a terse yet poetic style that calls to mind the prose of Hawthorne and Melville, Roberts brings this story to life with a quiet energy and a yearning that is palpable. Evangeline is a wonderful starting point for a tale that wraps itself around so many of the myths and legends regarding seafaring, American pioneering and whaling, as well as a burgeoning feminism found in the women who are called upon every generation to recreate and reshape the world in a way that befits the terrain where they find themselves.

As a lover of early American literature, I found this novel to be a truly revolutionary read. Our culture never fails to find new and interesting ways of looking at our history (two recent examples are “Hamilton” and “Yellowstone”). When that perspective is taken by women, people of color or indigenous peoples, whose narratives haven’t always been valued, it brings us to a new place of understanding and interest. WILD AND DISTANT SEAS is a beautiful book full of amazing people that pays great homage to the small paragraphs from which it took inspiration.