Feast Day of the Cannibals

Simpson/Joyce Carol Oates Prize Longlist

" Norman Lock's fiction] shimmers with glorious language, fluid rhythms, and complex insights." --NPR

In the sixth stand-alone book in The American Novels series, Shelby Ross, a merchant ruined by the depression of 1873-79, is hired as a New York City Custom House appraiser under inspector Herman Melville, the embittered, forgotten author of Moby-Dick. On the docks, Ross befriends a genial young man and makes an enemy of a despicable one, who attempts to destroy them by insinuating that Ross and the young man share an unnatural affection. Ross narrates his story to his childhood friend Washington Roebling, chief engineer of the soon-to-be-completed Brooklyn Bridge. As he is harried toward a fate reminiscent of Ahab's, he encounters Ulysses S. Grant, dying in a brownstone on the Upper East Side; Samuel Clemens, who will publish Grant's Memoirs; and Thomas Edison, at the dawn of the electrification of the city.

Feast Day of the Cannibals charts the harrowing journey of a tormented heart during America's transformative age.

Norman Lock is the award-winning author of novels, short fiction, and poetry, as well as stage and radio plays. He lives in Aberdeen, New Jersey, where he is at work on the next books of The American Novels series.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press
Published: 07/16/2019
ISBN: 9781942658467
Pages: 240
Weight: 0.55lbs
Size: 7.40h x 5.00w x 0.70d

Review Citations: Library Journal 05/01/2019 pg. 88
Kirkus Reviews 05/15/2019
Publishers Weekly 05/20/2019
Foreword 06/26/2019
Booklist 06/01/2019 pg. 47