Preparing the Ghost: An Essay Concerning the Giant Squid and Its First Photographer (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781631490569)

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.

Author: Matthew Gavin Frank
ISBN-10: 1631490567
ISBN-13: 9781631490569
Publisher: Liveright Publishing Corporation
Language: English
Published: 06/29/2015
Pages: 320
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.40lbs
Size: 7.20h x 4.50w x 0.80d