Tara Karr Roberts first read Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick when it was assigned to her in a graduate class.
The brief mention of the innkeeper Mrs. Hussey sparked her imagination, and in her debut novel, Wild and Distant Seas, she created a world for Evangeline Hussey and her descendants, complete with magical realism and the whaling town settings characteristic to Moby-Dick.
Although her novel takes inspiration from Moby-Dick, readers need not have read it to understand and appreciate her story. I recently spoke with Tara Karr Roberts about the four generations of women she’s created and their magical gifts.
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Wild and Distant Seas was published by W.W. Norton.
Marginalia was produced at KMUW Wichita and is part of the NPR Podcast Network.
- Mark Statzer and Torin Andersen - engineers
- Haley Crowson & Lu Anne Stephens - editor
- Haley Crowson & Katie Lanning - producer
- Karlee Cooper - marketing coordinator
- Beth Golay - host
