Preparing the Ghost

Memory, mythology and obsession collide in this “slyly charming” (New York Times Book Review) account of the giant squid.

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.