Melvill

Argentine writer Fresan (The Invented Part) focuses his visionary latest on the inner life of author Herman Melville and the exploits of his tormented father, Allan. In the first section, set in December 1831, 12-year-old Herman sits by Allan’s deathbed as the elder Melvill (the second “e” was added later) recounts his illustrious revolutionary roots in Boston, promising marriage to the fetching Maria Gansevoort, ruinous career as a merchant, and mystical final adventure, in which he walks across the frozen Hudson River and hears “messages seeming to come from the Beyond.” Herman faithfully records it all—but cannot resist scribbling copious footnotes that embellish, interrupt, and underscore Allan’s narrative. In the book’s second part, Allan speaks for himself, describing his time in Venice, where he encountered Nicolás Cueva, a “pale young man with white hair” who claims to be undead and imparts forbidden knowledge, prefiguring the subject matter of Herman’s novels. The magisterial final act returns to Herman, who narrates his adventures among sailors and cannibals, lambastes his critics, and reunites with his father’s ghost. The narrative gestures at the kind of ever-expanding realm of imagination that the great author himself incarnated, and the kind Fresan’s Herman prophesies: “A book (a pure style of book, a book of pure style) where many things would end so many others could begin.” This is a masterpiece. (Oct.)