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Nathaniel Philbrick grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and earned a BA in English from Brown University and an MA in America Literature from Duke University, where he was a James B. Duke Fellow. He was Brown University's first Intercollegiate All-American sailor in 1978, the same year he won the Sunfish North Americans in Barrington, Rhode Island. After working as an editor at Sailing World magazine, he wrote and edited several books about sailing, including The Passionate Sailor, Second Wind, and Yaahting: A Parody. In 2000, Philbrick published the New York Times bestseller In the Heart of the Sea, which won the National Book Award for nonfiction. The book is the basis of the Warner Bros. motion picture Heart of the Sea, directed by Ron Howard and starring Chris Hemsworth, Cillian Murphy, Brendan Gleeson, Benjamin Walker, Ben Wishaw, and Tom Holland. The book also inspired a 2001 Dateline special on NBC as well as the 2010 two-hour PBS American Experience film Into the Deep by Ric Burns. Philbrick's writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, The New York Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Boston Globe. He has appeared on the Today show, The Morning Show, Dateline, PBS's American Experience, C-SPAN, and NPR. He and his wife live on Nantucket.
Nathaniel Philbrick's website
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Why do you believe the tale of the Essex needed retelling? Why is it
important to tell now?
Except for at a few old whaling ports such as Nantucket and New Bedford,
the story of the Essex was known, if it was known at all, as the story that
inspired the climax of Moby-Dick. It seemed to me that the Essex was
something more than the raw material for Melville's miraculous art; it was a
survival tale that also happened to be an essential part of American history.
Back in the early nineteenth century, America had more frontiers than the
West; there was also the sea, and the Nantucket whaleman was the sea-going
mountain man of his day, chasing the sperm whale into the distant corners of
the Pacific Ocean. Americans today have lost track of the importance the sea
had in creating the nation's emerging identity. It wasn't all cowboys and
Indians; there was also the whalemen and Pacific. More than a decade before
the Donner party brought a story of frontier cannibalism to the American
public, there was the Essex disaster.
You brought a historic tale to life with vivid detail and emotional
content that rivals narrative fiction. Did it feel like you were writing
fiction?
I am ...
Susan Casey is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Devil's Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America's Great White Sharks. She served as creative director of Outside Magazine, where she was part ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
In the Heart of the Sea
Try:
The Devil's Teeth
by Susan Casey
Abby Geni is the author of The Wildlands, The Lightkeepers, The Last Animal, and The Body Farm. Her books have been translated into seven languages and have won the Barnes & Noble Discover Award and the Chicago Review of ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
In the Heart of the Sea
Try:
The Lightkeepers
by Abby Geni
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