Sena Jeter Naslund
Author of Ahab's Wife or, The Star-Gazer
About the Author
Sena Jeter Naslund was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1942. She received a Bachelor's degree from Birmingham Southern College, where she received the B.B. Comer Medal in English, and a Master's degree and a doctorate from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. She has taught at the University of show more Louisville, the University of Montana, Indiana University (Bloomington), Vermont College, and the University of Montevallo. She has written several books including The Disobedience of Water, Ahab's Wife, Four Spirits, Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette, and Adam and Eve. She has won numerous awards including the Harper Lee Award, the Hall-Waters Southern Prize, the Southeastern Library Association Award, and the Alabama Library Association Award. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Library of Congress
Works by Sena Jeter Naslund
High Horse: Contemporary Writing by the MFA Faculty of Spalding University (2005) — Editor — 2 copies
Friendship and Fiction 1 copy
Associated Works
Death Echo | Sherlock in Love | The Lies That Bind — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Naslund, Sena Jeter
- Birthdate
- 1942-06-28
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Birmingham-Southern College
University of Iowa (Iowa Writers' Workshop, MA, PhD|creative writing) - Occupations
- writer
poet
editor
professor - Organizations
- University of Louisville (Distinguished Teaching Professor)
Spalding University brief-residency Master of Fine Arts in Writing (program director)
The Louisville Review (editor, founder)
Fleur-de-Lis Press (founder, 1976) - Awards and honors
- Kentucky Poet Laureate
Writer in Residence (University of Louisville)
Harper Lee Award
Southeastern Library Association Fiction Award - Agent
- Joy Harris (Joy Harris Literary Agency)
- Relationships
- Jeter, Marvin D. (brother)
Jeter, John Sims (brother) - Short biography
- From HarperCollins: Sena Jeter Naslund is the daughter of a physician father and a musician mother. She grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, with her two older brothers Marvin D. Jeter, an archaeologist and author and John Sims Jeter, a retired engineer and novelist. The Jeter family also lived briefly in Loredo, West Virginia, and Jackson, Louisiana. Naslund attended public schools in Birmingham and graduated from Birmingham Southern College where she received the B.B. Comer Medal in English. She earned a master's degree and a doctorate from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. She served as Kentucky Poet Laureate during 2005–2006, and is currently Writer in Residence and Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Louisville.
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Birmingham, Alabama, USA
- Places of residence
- Birmingham, Alabama, USA
Louisville, Kentucky, USA - Associated Place (for map)
- USA
Members
Discussions
Ahab's Wife in Awful Lit. (August 2015)
Reviews
When I set out to read a book about Marie Antoinette, I expect one of two things - either a sordid tale of debauchery and excess or a twisting tale of court politics, a game of intrigue where royalty and their retainers play and plot for high stakes.
This book shocked me to my core because it is neither of these two things. Quite frankly, why else would anyone read about royalty?
The author seems to think I would pick up a book about the most notorious queen of France because I want to be show more bored stiff by wide-eyed descriptions of court finery and witness the tragic downfall of a complete innocent. Marie Antoinette is portrayed in this novel as dullard and a simpleton. She's not interested in politics or reading, she simply floats through this book's many chapters behaving foolishly while all the grisly details of the French revolution go rather unmentioned until the end. Marie doesn't care about politics so we're not told about what's going on. Instead we get page after page of her exceedingly dull inner life and her positively inane thoughts.
Apparently, Marie Antoinette is completely misunderstood. All she ever wanted to do was help the people of France. She is innocent of everything. Well even if it's true, who cares? The entirety of the book is saccharine in the extreme. You'll rot your teeth listening to the idiotic but well-meaning patter of this useless protagonist. show less
This book shocked me to my core because it is neither of these two things. Quite frankly, why else would anyone read about royalty?
The author seems to think I would pick up a book about the most notorious queen of France because I want to be show more bored stiff by wide-eyed descriptions of court finery and witness the tragic downfall of a complete innocent. Marie Antoinette is portrayed in this novel as dullard and a simpleton. She's not interested in politics or reading, she simply floats through this book's many chapters behaving foolishly while all the grisly details of the French revolution go rather unmentioned until the end. Marie doesn't care about politics so we're not told about what's going on. Instead we get page after page of her exceedingly dull inner life and her positively inane thoughts.
Apparently, Marie Antoinette is completely misunderstood. All she ever wanted to do was help the people of France. She is innocent of everything. Well even if it's true, who cares? The entirety of the book is saccharine in the extreme. You'll rot your teeth listening to the idiotic but well-meaning patter of this useless protagonist. show less
"Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last."
Thus opens this sweeping novel of the infamous Captain Ahab's wife, Una. Starting in a Kentucky cabin in deepest winter and ending on the windswept eastern edge of Nantucket, the novel takes us through the middle part of the 19th century, using the touchstone of the story of Captain Ahab and his nemesis, Moby Dick, to explore themes of family, abolition, faith and science, suffrage and women's right to self-determination, and revenge. show more I thoroughly enjoyed Una's story and loved the brief visits by famous souls such as Frederick Douglass and Margaret Fuller, along with a fascinating cast of truly fictional characters. Sena Jeter Naslund wanders just a wee bit too far down the path of philosophical musings at times but otherwise this is a satisfying ambitious read. show less
Thus opens this sweeping novel of the infamous Captain Ahab's wife, Una. Starting in a Kentucky cabin in deepest winter and ending on the windswept eastern edge of Nantucket, the novel takes us through the middle part of the 19th century, using the touchstone of the story of Captain Ahab and his nemesis, Moby Dick, to explore themes of family, abolition, faith and science, suffrage and women's right to self-determination, and revenge. show more I thoroughly enjoyed Una's story and loved the brief visits by famous souls such as Frederick Douglass and Margaret Fuller, along with a fascinating cast of truly fictional characters. Sena Jeter Naslund wanders just a wee bit too far down the path of philosophical musings at times but otherwise this is a satisfying ambitious read. show less
Opening line: Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last.
Melville’s classic Moby Dick contains perhaps three or four sentences that reference Ahab’s wife – “… not three-voyages wedded – a sweet, resigned girl…” – but those brief references were enough to inspire Neslund to write this tome.
Una is a marvelous character: intelligent, forthright, adventurous, eager to learn, ready to work, open to new ideas, questioning of the status quo, tenacious, principled, show more loyal and loving. Neslund takes her from her childhood in Kentucky, raised in a remote cabin near the Ohio River, by a God-fearing man who will beat the Lord into his daughter if necessary, and a devoted mother who will ensure her child’s safety, to her later years in Massachusetts. Along the way she encounters a wonderful cast of colorful characters – from her Aunt and Uncle, to the young men she is courted by, to the sailors / whalers she comes to admire, and the neighbors who form her “family” in Nantucket and ‘Sconset (including Mary Starbuck, wife of Ahab’s first mate).
Neslund fills the novel with details of life in 19th century America:. the difficulties of a winter in a small Kentucky cabin, the excitement (and terror) of sailing on a whaling vessel, the tragedy of slavery, the joy of intellectual pursuits, the dangers of childbirth, and the quiet peace of a happy home.
But make no mistake, the story is Una’s, first and foremost. show less
Melville’s classic Moby Dick contains perhaps three or four sentences that reference Ahab’s wife – “… not three-voyages wedded – a sweet, resigned girl…” – but those brief references were enough to inspire Neslund to write this tome.
Una is a marvelous character: intelligent, forthright, adventurous, eager to learn, ready to work, open to new ideas, questioning of the status quo, tenacious, principled, show more loyal and loving. Neslund takes her from her childhood in Kentucky, raised in a remote cabin near the Ohio River, by a God-fearing man who will beat the Lord into his daughter if necessary, and a devoted mother who will ensure her child’s safety, to her later years in Massachusetts. Along the way she encounters a wonderful cast of colorful characters – from her Aunt and Uncle, to the young men she is courted by, to the sailors / whalers she comes to admire, and the neighbors who form her “family” in Nantucket and ‘Sconset (including Mary Starbuck, wife of Ahab’s first mate).
Neslund fills the novel with details of life in 19th century America:. the difficulties of a winter in a small Kentucky cabin, the excitement (and terror) of sailing on a whaling vessel, the tragedy of slavery, the joy of intellectual pursuits, the dangers of childbirth, and the quiet peace of a happy home.
But make no mistake, the story is Una’s, first and foremost. show less
I can honestly say that this is one of the best books I have ever read. I have not been able to start reading another book since finishing Ahab's Wife, because of it's profound effect on me. This epic novel was a gift to me on my second visit to Nantucket. Knowing the places the author describes so well made the experience of reading richer on a sensory level than if I had never been to Nantucket before. Yet, I know that visiting the island need not be a prerequisite for appreciating this show more book. I found Ahab's Wife at times heart-warming, then heart-wrenching, and even heart-breaking with our heroine, Una becoming the champion of my heart. I was delighted at many points throughout the book to look ahead and see that the book's end was nowhere in sight. What a pleasure to find an author with the patience to weave a complex and stunning tale that allows us to ponder the issues that motivate us to live and die! SImply wonderful. show less
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- Rating
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