Life After Ahab

In his 1997 essay “The Wonderful White Whale of Kansas,” Paul Metcalf posed a nagging question about the respective afterlives of a pair of American classics. “If there have been so many sequels to [The Wonderful Wizard of] Oz,” he wondered, “why not Moby-Dick?” Luckily, Metcalf is here to correct the record. He proceeds to dream up a few sequels of his own, concocting different futures for the Pequod’s crew and their offspring, some of whom, in his fantasy, actually survived the wreck. In Metcalf’s imaginings, these lucky escapees decamped to the setting of Melville’s first novel, the Marquesas Islands, where they interbred with the natives “and eventually scattered into the world.” Among their heirs: Ahab’s great-grandson, a dentist in Peoria, Stubb’s great-grandson, a corporate lawyer, and a descendent of Queequeg who is the “first female mixed-race mayor of a major American city.”