Preparing the Ghost: An Essay Concerning the Giant Squid and Its First Photographer

By: Matthew Gavin Frank

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Synopsis: 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.