Melville

In this biography, the author depicts the delicate balance between Melville's life and his creativity and examines the impact of family members upon Melville's artistic experience. The author examines Melville's family bonds--the weak father, the dominant mother, and the favored older brother--and the dramatic impact of his father's death (bankrupt and mad) when Melville was only 12. This biography records the painful drama of Melville's search for a replacement of the father which fictionally took the mythic form of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, and Ishmael.