{"id":56163,"date":"2013-07-24T16:24:07","date_gmt":"2013-07-24T20:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=56163"},"modified":"2013-07-24T17:10:32","modified_gmt":"2013-07-24T21:10:32","slug":"small-island-an-interview-with-nathaniel-philbrick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/07\/24\/small-island-an-interview-with-nathaniel-philbrick\/","title":{"rendered":"Small Island: An Interview with Nathaniel Philbrick"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"nantucketymaplarge\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Nathaniel Philbrick has written six books on United States history, most of which take place on or by the sea. In 2000, his <\/i>In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex\u2014about the sunken whaleship that inspired a young Herman Melville\u2014won the National Book Award for Nonfiction. He then wrote <\/i>Sea of Glory: America’s Voyage of Discovery, The U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838\u20131842, followed by <\/i>Mayflower: A Story of Community, Courage, and War, which was a finalist for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in History. Because of <\/i>In the Heart of the Sea and his articles on the whaling industry, Philbrick and Melville have become something of a pair. Philbrick recently wrote the thin and ruminative <\/i>Why Read Moby-Dick? and the introduction to the last Penguin Edition of <\/i>Moby-Dick.<\/p>\n

I had read <\/i>In the Heart of the Sea and <\/i>Mayflower years ago, but it wasn\u2019t until this past spring when a local bookseller handed me Philbrick\u2019s first book, <\/i>Away Off Shore: Nantucket Island and Its People, that I decided to write him a letter. There\u2019s a thrifty, poetic quality to the makeup of that book, a clear joy in the research alone. It\u2019s rawer, not so carved by what reviewers have noted as Philbrick\u2019s masterful use of narrative and perspective in his other books, and so shows his research instincts clearer. He includes a description of the spring day when early Nantucketers set a pit of snakes on fire, and the time in 1795 when robbers bent pewter spoons into keys to steal $20,000 in gold coins from Nantucket Bank. Farmers on the island used to fertilize fields by scaring sheep at night with burning coals, and whalers traded their pant cuffs for sex in the South Pacific Islands. I put my e-mail on the bottom of the letter and dropped it in the mail. He wrote back in June, offering lunch and a “ramble” around the island.<\/p>\n

We met for chowder and beer down at Nantucket\u2019s South Wharf, near the old ships chandlery. Centuries ago, scallop shanties were on the South Wharf, where “openers” shucked for hours under lantern light and pipe smoke. Philbrick had arrived on his bike and exactly on time, wearing wayfarer sunglasses. It was a sunny day; while transcribing the interview, I listened to wind and gulls behind his voice. He speaks energetically, smiles constantly and in a way that evokes Steve Carell, and, mostly, is humble. Later that evening, walking through his house with him and his beloved golden retriever Stella, I saw just one sign of his success: a tiny framed clipping of the July 9, 2000, <\/i>New York Times best-seller list, in which <\/i>Harry Potter is on the fiction side, and <\/i>In the Heart of the Sea is on the other, at number two. He\u2019s proud of his family and talks about them often. He showed me the marks on the wooden floor where his son had practiced cello, and the room full of his grandmother\u2019s paintings, one of which might be of her good friend, Claude Monet\u2019s daughter.<\/p>\n

After lunch, we walked through downtown to visit the Nantucket Historical Association\u2019s Research Library. On the way, he pointed in the direction of where Herman Melville visited and dined with Nathaniel Hawthorne the summer after the disastrous publication of <\/i>Moby-Dick. As in his books, Philbrick resurrects the past with unexpected precision: \u201cHawthorne,\u201d he said, \u201cwas handsome and shy.\u201d When we arrived at the Research Library, an archivist greeted him by holding up a review of his newest book, <\/i>Bunker Hill. \u201cDid you see this?\u201d she asked, pointing to a caricature of Philbrick dressed like a colonial. \u201cOh, jeez,\u201d he said, and turned away bashfully.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Weeks later, sitting in his patio, Stella panting behind us, I asked him why he keeps retelling stories that people already know. The <\/i>Mayflower story. Bunker Hill. Custer\u2019s Last Stand. \u201cYeah, sure,\u201d he said, smiling. \u201cEverybody knows about the Little Bighorn. But what do they really know about the Little Bighorn? I knew nothing. What I knew was three sentences that had nothing to do with what happened.\u201d He continued, \u201cIn each book, I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m getting into. And if I did know what I was getting into, the book would be stale. There would be no crackle. For me, it\u2019s the act of discovery gives the prose life. Otherwise, it would be dead.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

Why did you move to Nantucket?<\/b><\/p>\n

We came to Nantucket in 1986. It was my wife\u2019s job that brought us here. She\u2019s an attorney. She grew up on Cape Cod. I\u2019m from Pittsburgh. I love to sail, but I\u2019m not from a maritime area. I had grandparents in West Falmouth\u2014that\u2019s how Melissa and I ended up meeting. We were living in a suburb of Boston before we moved out. She was the breadwinner. I was at home, writing, taking care of the kids. We had kids, one and four.<\/p>\n

You were a young dad.<\/b><\/p>\n

We had Jenny when we were twenty-five. We had made sort of a pact. I said, You\u2019re going to make a lot more money than I will\u2014I was a journalist for what\u2019s now Sailing World<\/i>, out of Newport.<\/p>\n

Neither one of us had spent any time here. It sounded like a good concept\u2014no commuting, everyone would be close. We arrived in September\u2014probably the first people to move to Nantucket without ever having spent a summer here. It took me a while to connect with the community, because I was at home with the kids. But then I got interested in the history of the island, and began to hang out at the archives. Away Off Shore <\/i>is a product of learning history on my own, of going alone to look around the archives. <\/p>\n

Have you always been interested in history, going to the archives? I can\u2019t figure out if you\u2019re a historian or a writer first. <\/b><\/p>\n

I was an English major at Brown. I never enjoyed history classes. I had a great AP U.S. History teacher in Pittsburgh. We still exchange Christmas cards. She was the first teacher who said I was a good writer\u2014and I\u2019d never heard that before. And so I remember that, and I remember that level of loving the material and really loving writing about it.<\/p>\n

When I was at Brown, I wanted to write the great American novel, but I was too scared to take a creative course. I signed up for one, got in, and just didn\u2019t have the courage to go. I was a tremendously shy person, almost pathologically shy. The thought of peers critiquing my work\u2014oh, God.<\/p>\n

After Brown, I went to Duke, to a Ph.D. program in American literature. My dad\u2019s an English professor. After a year there, I was like, Jesus. I don\u2019t want to do this. I don\u2019t want to be in the library. So I pulled the ripcord and that was it. I read half a dozen books, took the orals, and was done. I never engaged in the process. When I left the program I started writing for Yacht Racing and Cruising<\/i>, which then became Sailing World<\/i>, and did that for four years. That\u2019s where I learned to write. We were a young staff, all about the same age. Three people reading each article, being brutal. That was really good for me\u2014I actually socialized in a very constructive way. And that\u2019s where I started looking at writing as a profession. I was also writing poems\u2014got a handful of poems in Manhattan Poetry Review<\/i>.<\/p>\n

So you\u2019re out on Nantucket, at home with the kids\u2014and why did you start researching the island? <\/b><\/p>\n

When we first moved here, I was a little at sea\u2014literally. I was even thinking of going back to grad school, which would have been the biggest mistake of my life. I began to think about what this place was like. I was interested in how this island became this island. I was coming at the past, in the past. From a sense of place. Melville was a big part of it, and I screwed around with writing academic articles about Melville.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The kids were getting older. And, you know, if you\u2019re at home with children, you lose twenty-five IQ points. But Ethan finally gets to the point where he\u2019s in first grade, so I have from the time I get up until two-thirty in the afternoon, on my own, for the first time. I immediately started hanging out at the archives. I had done a couple academic articles for New England Quarterly<\/em>, so I had done some research. I got a contract with the local publisher to write Away Off Shore<\/i>. It was a year I\u2019ll never forget.<\/p>\n

I should mention that it was while writing Away Off Shore<\/i> that I discovered the mode I have been using ever since. It\u2019s really a journalistic approach to the past\u2014trying to figure out who these people were, and telling a story. As you know, each chapter in that book is about a specific character but takes the history of the island forward. A light bulb went off with that book\u2014I realized it\u2019s those details, those little anecdotes.<\/p>\n

Can you talk more about your research? Mayflower<\/i> has around fifty pages of notes and thirty pages of bibliography.<\/b><\/p>\n

The challenge of writing any history, any nonfiction, is that there\u2019s just so much you have to know. Seventy-five percent of my time is reading and taking notes. The note-taking is everything for me. When I\u2019m first going through letters, or the archive, I find little details, anecdotes, that I think are cool. I have a little notebook where I write all this stuff down.<\/p>\n

What type of notebook?<\/b><\/p>\n

Moleskine. It\u2019s almost a reading journal. Day by day. Early on I\u2019m getting a sense of the book. I find that when I\u2019m new to a topic, that\u2019s when I\u2019m catching the best details. It\u2019s all new to me\u2014it\u2019s what the reader will respond to. Because you can so easily over-know a topic, and you lose the magic. It becomes interesting to you, but you\u2019ve lost the connection to the reader. You\u2019re too far down the rabbit hole. So for me, having a record of those initial reactions to the material is really important. It\u2019s the road map I go back to. You forgot how interesting the material was when you first learned it, after you\u2019ve learned a lot about a topic. It\u2019s all very random. But now that I\u2019ve written quite a few books, I can see that so much of where the book will go is based on initial reactions to material before I even know how I\u2019m going to structure it.<\/p>\n

When it comes to actually writing a chapter, I go through that notebook and on my computer type out notes from it, so I\u2019m relearning the material. So much of the process is learning the material. It has to be in your head. Just writing it down doesn\u2019t do it for me\u2014I have to read, type, and learn it. So that\u2019s the first stage. And then I start researching a chapter. Starting a chapter, I read over all the material again, and take voluminous notes. And then finding out I need to know more. I\u2019m basically memorizing it in a weird way\u2014it\u2019s just getting it in your head. No one can keep an entire book in their head at one time. I work chapter by chapter. Now I zero on what I want to say in the chapter. My routine is a chapter a month. My first three weeks are reading all my stuff\u2014and realizing what I need to know. I\u2019m typing notes frantically. I\u2019ll typically end up with a hundred pages of notes per chapter. It\u2019s important to type it out\u2014because I haven\u2019t learned it unless I type it out. If I just go to a book and underline it, I haven\u2019t learned it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So there I have hundred pages of notes, organized into letters, people, all that. So I\u2019ve spent three weeks doing that. Now I spend three or four days reading the notes. Now it\u2019s a yellow pad. Taking notes on the notes. That\u2019s where I\u2019m organizing. A, B, C, ordering happens. It\u2019s a process of just, again, getting it in my head. I spend three days going over those notes. It\u2019s ten hours a day, seven days a week at that point, as my wife can attest, in my office.<\/p>\n

Where\u2019s your office?<\/b><\/p>\n

In my basement. I call it the bunker. My notes are all over the place. Maps all over the place. Books everywhere. It\u2019s a mess, a total mess.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I guess I just imagined a renovated widow\u2019s walk. A view out to the sea. <\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

There is a window, but no view. It faces a wall. I don\u2019t look out to the ocean. There\u2019s no romance to this. This is pure information getting into my head. In fact, I wish I didn\u2019t have a window. Okay, so now it\u2019s time to write.<\/p>\n

Are you a fast writer?<\/b><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll type out an eight-thousand-word chapter in five to seven days. It\u2019s already in my head\u2014it\u2019s just a matter getting it down. Writing can\u2019t be too calculated. My best writing is when I set it aside, move on. It\u2019s not when I\u2019m crafting a sentence, thinking about what word should follow another. Phoom! It comes out, and then I go back and find what\u2019s good. I really need to get into the flow. That\u2019s when I really need to know where everything is in the notes, so I\u2019m not spending time trying to find a piece of information. I need to be very organized. It\u2019s kinetic. It\u2019s got to all be happening. It\u2019s mesmeric. It\u2019s like Melville talking about writing Moby-Dick<\/i>\u2014you can just see his eyes glazing over. I don\u2019t quit until Melissa arrives. She works longer hours than I do\u2014she usually comes home around eight. We have dinner. Then I watch stupid TV until I go to bed. I don\u2019t sleep well when I\u2019m working on a book. Sentences will be in my head, and I\u2019ll wake up and scribble something down. Usually it\u2019s not helpful. I just have to get the book done, or else I\u2019d have a breakdown.<\/p>\n

What do you watch on TV?<\/b><\/p>\n

The Voice<\/em>. I\u2019m really into The Voice<\/em>. I like Wheel of Fortune<\/em>, Access Hollywood<\/em>, Hawaii Five-O<\/em>. Stupid stuff. The last thing I need is something challenging. And I hate to say it, but it\u2019s a great pleasure for me to experience the culture out there. It keeps me away. I can get away from what I\u2019m doing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, after I finish a draft, I hit print. I used to do a lot more revising on the page. I used to print at the end of every day, and then the next morning revise. I\u2019ve since gotten to the point where I just do the revising on the screen. I print out the whole chapter, edit it, spend a day looking it over, then reprint it, and take upstairs and read it aloud to my wife after dinner.<\/p>\n

Out loud?<\/b><\/p>\n

That is the most critical point. She has a notepad where she\u2019s writing comments. It\u2019s so funny\u2014you can look at things on the screen, and it looks great. Then you read it, and you go, Oh my God. The rhythm of the prose is something I\u2019m really trying to work on. So when I\u2019m reading it aloud, I\u2019ll hear the prose and go, That sucks. Like all of us, I\u2019m always searching for a word. It\u2019s a lot of the sounds I\u2019m going for\u2014not that I\u2019m creating anything anyone notices.<\/p>\n

In many ways poetry is my first love\u2014that level of engagement with words. Robert Frost is so sneaky. He\u2019s like Hemingway\u2014he saw the darkness and then created this stylistic veneer that keeps it down, but you\u2019re fed it unconsciously.<\/p>\n

So, then Melissa has comments, very pointed comments. And using that input, I will spend another day reworking it. Then I will send it to my mother and father.<\/p>\n

The English professor.<\/b><\/p>\n

Yes, and my mother is a retired kindergarten teacher. My dad\u2019s a really good copy editor. We talk on the phone about the draft, and then I put it away, and start the next chapter. Melissa always yells at me, Have you done your notes? In the stuff I do, I do discursive notes at the back of the book. If you save the notes until the end of the book, you forget too much. I hate doing it, but before I move on to the next chapter I\u2019ll write a rough draft of where everything came from. Page numbers.<\/p>\n

So you don\u2019t do footnotes while you\u2019re writing?<\/b><\/p>\n

No. I\u2019ve got to just let it run. That\u2019s the thing for me. It\u2019s getting it in my heading, getting the organization. I\u2019ve got to just get it all down. It\u2019s like painting a room. It\u2019s all prep work. If you do it right, you paint the room in two hours. And then, when I finish the book, it\u2019s just rewriting, rewriting, and rewriting. I\u2019m getting the rhythm of the book. Then I\u2019ll send it to my editor, Wendy Wolf, who I\u2019ve had since In Heart of the Sea<\/i>. We know each other very well. She\u2019s really tough and great.<\/p>\n

What applied to Away Off Shore<\/i> and all my books since is that, for me, it\u2019s the preface that matters. That\u2019s where I develop the voice, and that\u2019s where I figure out what I\u2019m going to say. Well into the Moleskine approach, I\u2019m trying to figure out what I\u2019m going to begin with. What scene will introduce what I\u2019m trying to do. That\u2019s really hard for me. I\u2019ll have forty drafts of how I\u2019m going to start the book. Forty different ways in. How about trying this way, how about that? And that\u2019s really the hard part. I\u2019m deconstructing myself, second guessing myself. Where am I coming from? What is this about? What\u2019s the voice? The tone? My manila folder for the preface is always really fat.<\/p>\n

How long has it been from when you started to the project to when you write your preface?<\/b><\/p>\n

Around nine months. That\u2019s when I have to figure out the preface. In writing the book, I return the preface obsessively. It\u2019s very frustrating for me. Often an approach I try early on is the right one. The other thing is that with each book I do a proposal. I\u2019m always amazed that after I finish the book, how much the book ended up like original proposal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

You write it for yourself or your publisher?<\/b><\/p>\n

Both. For me I wouldn\u2019t do a book without it. You can say, Look, you know what your topic is. But, for me, I don\u2019t really know what it is until I write it down. That proposal, sometimes twelve pages, is essential, the process of creating a polished representation of the book. I would have night sweats if I went into a topic without having done a proposal first. Never take anything for granted.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s a writing day like for you, after the research?<\/b><\/p>\n

When the kids were young, I\u2019d get up early and start writing before they went to school, and then Melissa would take them to school. That would give me a couple of hours. Now, I get up, walk the dog, ritualistically go the pharmacy on Nantucket to get my cup of coffee, drop my wife off at work, get home, feed the dog. She\u2019s almost twelve. I have to be at my desk at nine. It\u2019s all really regimented. I need these routines. Because I\u2019m a slob. I\u2019m not a very structured person, really, except when it comes to this. With this, I\u2019m hyper-structured. It\u2019s scary.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Do you like the writing part?<\/b><\/p>\n

For me, it\u2019s the most fun. I just love those few days. That\u2019s what it\u2019s all about. It\u2019s delayed gratification. It\u2019s foreplay. During the research, all I want to do is start writing. But I have to say to myself, No, no\u2014you need to know more. And then just go for it.<\/p>\n

When do you know when to stop researching and start writing?<\/b><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a sense that if I know any more, it will just get confusing. It\u2019s funny. The whole thing\u2019s regimented, but also instinctual. Something goes off, and I need to start writing. It\u2019s based on keeping those notes. The other thing is that I\u2019m big into scribbling in my books. I\u2019ll sometimes realize while I\u2019m writing, while I\u2019m far into it, that I need something that\u2019s not in the notes, that\u2019s in the books. By scribbling over those books, I have another little road map. Stars and exclamation points.<\/p>\n

So you\u2019re buying the books that you use for research?<\/b><\/p>\n

Yes. Years ago, I was visiting David McCullough\u2014he and I went the same elementary school in Pittsburgh, many years apart\u2014after In the Heart of the Sea<\/i>, and he said to me, You\u2019ve got to buy the books. You\u2019ve just got to buy the books. It\u2019s true.<\/p>\n

Has he been a mentor?<\/b><\/p>\n

David\u2019s career is exemplary. He\u2019s well on in years and still active and creative. But we have a real different approach to material\u2014which I think is generational. He\u2019s a guy who has a narrative voice like no other.<\/p>\n

Do you have a voice in your books?<\/b><\/p>\n

When I wrote a first draft of a preface for Away Off Shore<\/i> I showed it to our local bookseller, who said, This is just too academic. I was crushed. But I thought, Yeah, I don\u2019t want to write a book like this, I want to write a book that\u2019s accessible, yet provocative, and does not assume previous knowledge. That\u2019s the hardest writing to do\u2014clear, concise, integrates information from all over, yet hopefully reads like it\u2019s a clear stream.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s the difference between the voice in Away Off Shore <\/i>and the voice in In the Heart of the Sea<\/i>?<\/b><\/p>\n

One was about my home, the other was about really scary stuff, you know what I mean? With In the Heart of the Sea<\/i>, I wanted that to be about ultimate issues of survival, the meaning of the universe, you know, Melville kinds of things. I just didn\u2019t want it to be a whaling tale. I wanted someone from Illinois who\u2019d never heard of whaling to read the first chapter and be hooked. I wanted to catch the universal essence of the experience, the very American experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So you think about your audience when you\u2019re writing?<\/b><\/p>\n

As a popular historian, I have a very democratic approach to my audience. Maybe that\u2019s why I like watching The Voice<\/em>. I really don\u2019t want to lordy-lordy lit-crit stuff. I really think that the meaningful elements of writing are so powerful and overwhelming that you should be able to communicate them to anyone. You shouldn\u2019t have to have read Thomas Mann and Rilke. You should be able to watch Wheel of Fortune<\/em>, pick up the book, and in the first paragraph go, Whoa.<\/p>\n

I had to be weaned from my own worst tendencies of trying to sound smart. The hardest thing to do is to leave that kind of pretension away. Just get to the essence. Hemingway is an author that everybody beats up on now, but, man, he takes profound experience and makes it accessible, and yet you may not fully grasp it when you first read it. You can read the page and not be intimidated. You don\u2019t need to intimidate people.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m just trying to draw people in. Provocative and scary are not the way you\u2019d want it to be. Like with Bunker Hill<\/i>. I get so impatient with the “our great nation” stuff. The darkness is so interesting and essential to the human experience in the past and in the present.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Can you talk about tragedy, the darkness? You treat a lot of terrifying material\u2014starvation, cannibalism\u2013with facts and details to maybe distance the horror of it. I\u2019m thinking of Sebastian Junger, who describes all the ways of drowning when he gets to the point in Perfect Storm<\/em> where the men drown. You do the same in In the Heart of the Sea<\/em> with starvation. <\/b><\/p>\n

Sebastian Junger was a powerful influence on In the Heart of the Sea<\/i>. It was the summer of \u201997, the summer of The Perfect Storm<\/i>, Into Thin Air<\/i>, and Angela\u2019s Ashes<\/i>. I was sailing with my family up in Maine, and those were the three books I brought with me. And I\u2019m reading The Perfect Storm<\/i> and going, Holy shit, this is really cool\u2014that\u2019s the Essex<\/i> story. It\u2019s a survival story, just like this. I thought, What if I make this a story that has the universal appeal, that gets out of the New England whaling armchair maritime stuff\u2014what if I make it something that\u2019s raw and direct and about human behavior? And so that\u2019s when I realized that all this Nantucket research that I\u2019d been doing could, maybe, appeal to somebody in Peoria.<\/p>\n

Will you write about nonfiction that isn\u2019t historical? <\/b><\/p>\n

At some point I\u2019d like to get back to the sailing. But, no, I don\u2019t see myself writing about an oil spill or that kind of reportage. For me, it\u2019s about trying to commune with those past events and personalities and trying to give them some living force. For example, in In the Heart of the Sea<\/i>, I felt this kinship with Thomas Nickerson. It\u2019s these dead voices that are alive\u2014that\u2019s the source of, for whatever reason, what I\u2019m following.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As anyone who\u2019s working with historical figures knows, you\u2019re telling as best as you possibly can, given what you\u2019ve read and thought about. But in the end, it\u2019s your <\/i>best guess\u2014it\u2019s not necessarily what happened. It\u2019s funny, there\u2019s always a sense of skepticism underlying the writing. But when I\u2019m in the middle of it, when I\u2019m writing a chapter, I suspend belief. I don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen. There\u2019s a sense of being in whatever moment I\u2019m describing. That moment\u2014I couldn\u2019t tell you where it\u2019s going to go. I\u2019m always trying to get to that state. It\u2019s exhausting. This is very cathartic. Thank you.<\/p>\n

After writing Moby-Dick<\/i>, Melville wrote to Hawthorne that all he could do was plant the fields. <\/b><\/p>\n

I can so relate to that. I don\u2019t get out much. I am just in my house, alone. The challenge I have is not going crazy, is getting out to socialize. The other structure besides the work I\u2019m doing is social interactions\u2014I need to see people. For lunch I go back to the pharmacy, usually at two o\u2019clock, sit there, and eat my ham and pickle sandwich. There are people around me\u2014I don\u2019t necessarily talk to them. It\u2019s hard having lunch with a friend. If I\u2019m in the writing phase, I just have a hard time talking. If I\u2019m in the research phase, I\u2019m fine. When I get back from lunch, I have another hour or two before it starts to get cobwebby. So, Stella, it\u2019s time to walk. Walk for an hour. I come back, get a new angle on the writing, and go until Melissa comes back. But going out to that pharmacy is so important. But, life happens. Someone dies and you have to go the funeral. You\u2019ve got to go to birthdays. All that\u2019s really good to get you out of there.<\/p>\n

So you don\u2019t really travel.<\/b><\/p>\n

We structure vacations around my research. My wife is really patient. I went to Little Bighorn seven times. And for In the Heart of the Sea<\/i>, I wanted to know what it\u2019s like to be in a whaleboat, attached by harpoon and line to a whale, being dragged twenty miles an hour. My family and I were in Miami, my daughter was racing boats. So my son Ethan and I rented a jet-ski. \u00a0<\/p>\n

What else do you do outside the archives for research? <\/b><\/p>\n

When I was doing In the Heart of the Sea<\/i>, I had this crayfish that I inherited from a neighbor. You fed the crayfish fish. Like a little lobster. Is it crawfish? We called it a crawfish when I was younger. Because I was working on the book, for two months I forgot about the crawfish. Didn\u2019t feed him. Nothing. And I looked at him. And I go, I haven\u2019t fed the crawfish for two months! He\u2019s starving. So I got all these guppies to feed him. And I gave him too many guppies, and he died. So, I think, This is starvation. It was a big metaphor for what I was going through with the Essex <\/i>guys. The kids did a little drawing of the crawfish for me.<\/p>\n

Or, for example, with Bunker Hill<\/i>, we were in England, visiting friends, but also a research trip, and visited the town of Firle, which is where General Gage is from, the British officer in charge of the British Army during the occupation of Boston. His descendant is there, a viscount. Through a series of connections my wife and I had sherry with Lord Gage. That was really cool. To me, it was like, Wow, there is no equivalent to this in the United States. Basically a town owned by a family who\u2019s been there for four hundred years.<\/p>\n

And then I had lunch with Paul Revere Jr. at Spanky\u2019s Clam Shack in Hyannis. He\u2019s eighty and looks just like Paul Revere. Six, seven generations removed\u2014still, if Paul Revere was eighty, this is him.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know what effect that had on my book, but that these countries went in very different directions. It looks like In the Heart of the Sea<\/i> is going to become a movie. And they\u2019re filming it in England. Hopefully we\u2019ll get over there again.<\/p>\n

Have you seen the new Moby-Dick<\/i> made-for-TV movie?<\/b><\/p>\n

No. Moby-Dick <\/i>is such a challenge.<\/p>\n

I always thought someone should write an adaptation of Typee<\/i>. That would be the one screenplay I\u2019d want to write. Melville, twenty-two years old.<\/b><\/p>\n

Typee<\/i>. Isn\u2019t that a great book? It\u2019s an incredible story. Melville could have been a great journalist.<\/p>\n

Melville is so much a part of your identity\u2014I can\u2019t help but compare your career to his. He was bankrupt and a literary obscurity when he died. You\u2019ve had more success. \u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

It may seem like that now. I was thirty-seven years old. I was at home with the kids. My mother said, Nat, when are you going to grow up? In the Heart of the Sea <\/i>didn\u2019t hit until I was forty-two. I had been working at this literally decades. It took a decade to figure out what I was doing. Part of it was that I was home with the kids\u2014and thank God I was. I didn\u2019t know what I was doing. I wasn\u2019t ready. I wouldn\u2019t say I\u2019m a late bloomer, but it takes me a while. It does not come quickly to me. Finally I started to figure out a way in. I didn\u2019t know what I was doing.<\/p>\n

All of Melville\u2019s success came when he was young.<\/b><\/p>\n

It\u2019s funny, you know, his father dies when he\u2019s twelve. A well-to-do family suddenly thrown into poverty. As a consequence, he\u2019s got the education and the expectations, and then he\u2019s thrust into life<\/i>. He did a lot of living. And he delayed his education\u2014I think that\u2019s so important. I went to college, I went to grad school. But I feel like I didn\u2019t learn anything until I started to do it on my own terms. I was reading stuff because I had a specific interest. It takes so much personal energy to engage. There has to be a sense of urgency to make it be real.<\/p>\n

Are you usually reading only what\u2019s relevant to your research? Fiction, too? <\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

After watching The Voice<\/em>, I get into bed and read, always fiction. I can\u2019t read nonfiction at night. Right now I\u2019m reading War and Peace<\/i>. Man, Tolstoy is so good. I had never read that book. It\u2019s profound in the way he brings internal life alive. Sometimes I just read one page before I fall asleep. I also just reread Tender is the Night<\/i>. Oh my God. Way better than Gatsby<\/i>. The real juice is in Tender is the Night<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Any contemporary fiction?<\/b><\/p>\n

What\u2019s the baseball Moby-Dick <\/i>one?<\/p>\n

The Art of Fielding.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Love that. Really good. Really fun. Melville\u2019s all over the book. That came out the same time as Why Read Moby-Dick? <\/i>came out.<\/p>\n

Have you ever wanted to write fiction? <\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

I told Melissa a long time ago, If I ever say I want a novel, tell me, no, don\u2019t do it. Every time I try to do it, I hit the period where I don\u2019t have the imaginative capacity to create an alternative universe. I think visually. I need to have a wild collection of facts and out of those create a story. If I didn\u2019t have the reality to work with, I lapse into the worst, trite crap you could do. It\u2019s not in my makeup.<\/p>\n

And writing about your own life? <\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a memoir I\u2019d love to write at some point. My parents had a camp called Mount Mansfield, in Vermont. It was just the four of us, in summers, living in Underhill, Vermont. Both my brother, Sam, and I have these very vivid memories of that period. From when I was seven to high school. This is a period my brother and I keep going back to. The great thing about being a kid is that you don\u2019t realize what\u2019s going on, and yet what\u2019s going on is pretty much determining who you\u2019re going to be.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nathaniel Philbrick has written six books on United States history, most of which take place on or by the sea. In 2000, his In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex\u2014about the sunken whaleship that inspired a young Herman Melville\u2014won the National Book Award for Nonfiction. 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