A heart, Captain Twain, is a big place

  I came across this marvelous book at Barnes and Noble and was immediately captivated by it’s moody and wild artwork, then by the premise as I did more looking and sampling. I know the photo at right isn’t doing it true justice, but I hope it does convey some of the feeling and artistry.

Sailor Twain, formerly Captain Twain of the riverboat the Lorelei, sits in a lowly tavern on the Hudson and is approached by a young woman, Camomille. She shows him an amulet and says that he can have it if she will tell him the whole story of her lost love and what happened to the Lorelei on that fateful day.

Then Twain launches into a tale that is equal parts fairy tale, love story and old fashioned ghost story. The Lorelei, one of the riverboats owned by the Lafayette family, goes up and down the Hudson river. Jaques-Henri Lafayette is by all accounts an astute businessman, and his boats turn a pretty mean profit. One day, though, he seems to go a bit off the rails and it seems as though he’s taken to drink or drugs. One day he disappears and his younger brother Dieudonne is called to take his place. From the outset, it is clear that this moody and unpredictable Frenchman is nothing like his brother and there is unrest among the crew.

Captain Twain begins as a solid sort, a man who takes his job seriously. We learn that he has always been a kind of dreamer, though, and he tries to write poetry and stories in his spare time. Then one day he pulls what he thinks is a woman from the river. Once he struggles to wrest her on deck he discovers she is actually a mermaid and that she has been wounded by a harpoon. Then things really get interesting.

This book is just lovely throughout, with maps of the Hudson and title pages with historical looking ephemera. There  are fictional and historical figures and events mingling together to make this a heady brew and altogether entrancing read. If you see this on a shelf, don’t hesitate to snap this up. You won’t regret it.