Dayswork: A Novel [Hardcover]

An NPR 2023 Books We Love Pick A Weird and wonderful, a novel in verse that immediately casts a spell and keeps it going until the last little missive. Its the kind of book you miss as soon as its over, its sway and power nearly as mysterious and unlikely as that of a leviathan tome about whaling&[I]t brings to mind Virginia Woolfs A clever mash-up of a fictionalized memoir, a meditation on a literary forebear, and a portrait of a marriage& A brief, illuminating book about Melville and marriage&[T]he words seem to bob on a sea of blank white pages, the ideas come together elegantly and with a deadpan timing. A probing story about ambition, art and marriage. Masterful. [T]he perfect book for a subdivided braina lovingly curated smorgasbord of Melville arcana lightly masquerading as a pandemic novel. Bachelder and Habel weave a deft, subtle family drama out of one womans obsessive immersion in the wonderful and frightening world of Herman Melville. Surprising and revelatory and the perfect read for all lovers of literature. [W]hat makes the novel so moving&is how Bachelder and Habel distill history down into a kind of personal microcosm. Bachelder and Habel have created a curious, heady cocktail of a quarantine novel that feels like a buoyant literary memoir, a surprising and exhilarating inquiry into the pleasures and pitfalls of literature, obsession, collaboration, and love, all relayed with piquant wit and thrilling insight. A remarkable, unusually rewarding work. A love letter to literature. How to describe this deeply moving and entirely original book I was equally charmed and fascinated by