Feast Day of the Cannibals

Starred review from May 1, 2019

Fans of Herman Melville and his masterpiece, Moby-Dick, will particularly enjoy this sixth installment in Lock's "American Novels" series set in 1882 Manhattan. Shelby Ross narrates the story to his childhood friend, Washington Roebling, who is in the last stages of building the Brooklyn Bridge. Ross is employed as an appraiser at the U.S. Customs House under the scrutiny of Herman Melville, who suffers as a still-living forgotten author. At work on the docks, Ross meets John Gibbs, a bully who revels in tormenting others. Melville comes to Ross's rescue when charges of falsifying appraisals are raised against him. Martin Finch, a colleague and new-found friend, invites Ross to share his dream and move to California. These plans dissolve when Finch is found by Melville, hanged from the balance beam of the scale house. Ross knows that Gibbs is behind this "suicide" and seeks revenge. Luminous historical figures such as Ulysses S. Grant, P.T. Barnum, and Samuel Clemens add to the well-rendered atmosphere, full of the people and spirit of the 1880s. VERDICT Easily read as a stand-alone novel, this spectacular work will delight and awe readers with Lock's magisterial wordsmithing.--Lisa Rohrbaugh, Leetonia Community P.L., OH

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2019
The latest book in Lock's American Novels series is narrated by a colleague of Herman Melville's, who tells a story that quietly moves toward gothic territory. About halfway through Lock's novel, narrator Shelby Ross is conversing with his friend and co-worker Martin when Martin invokes Moby-Dick. This isn't a random reference: The year is 1882, and both men work with Herman Melville in the customs office. Yet Shelby has no idea what Martin is talking about--a telling reminder that Melville had, at this point in his life, fallen into literary obscurity. Shelby has similarly seen better days, economically speaking, but finds warmth in his interactions with both Martin and Melville. The novel is structured around Shelby's telling the story of this period of his life to Washington Roebling, who engineered the Brooklyn Bridge. As Shelby recounts his story--which also includes his rivalry with Gibbs, another co-worker, who has a propensity for insults, sadism, and violence--it gradually becomes apparent that ominous events are on the horizon for all involved. Gradually, the central qualities of several of the characters--Martin's enthusiasm, Shelby's reticence, and Gibbs' propensity for chaos--are destined for a collision of some sort. In the novel's second half, Lock subtly suggests that Shelby is, if not unreliable, then not quite as aware of himself as he should be. And while Moby-Dick is often referenced by the characters, it's Billy Budd, a later work of Melville's, that's alluded to thematically, as Lock addresses questions of desire and repression, both personal and societal. What begins quietly takes a turn for the emotionally wrenching. It takes a little while to build up speed, but this novel memorably provides a window into old New York and its narrator's conflicted mind.

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May 20, 2019
Lock flexes a powerful historical imagination in his bleak, transfixing sixth entry in the American Novel series (following The Wreckage of Eden). Shelby Ross recounts his life to childhood friend Washington Roebling, the bedridden chief engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge, as the two look out on the nearly complete project in 1882. Shelby, a 39-year-old former business owner, lost his fortune in an economic collapse. He is hired to work as an appraiser under a dispirited and volatile Herman Melville (whose novels are forgotten and whose marriage is under intense strain) at the New York Custom House. Shelby makes an enemy of John Gibbs, a coarse and mean weigher, but forms a fast, putatively platonic attachment with the effete and timid 20-year-old Martin Finch. Gibbs suspects there’s more than friendship going on between the two men and vacillates between soliciting Shelby himself and attempting to humiliate him, including tricking him into visiting a transvestite brothel where Shelby is assaulted. The second half of the novel jumps forward two years as Shelby explains again in Roebling’s room the nightmarish events that led to his recent incarceration. This historically authentic novel raises potent questions about sexuality during an unsettling era in American history past and is another impressive entry in Lock’s dissection of America’s past.

June 1, 2019
Shelby Ross had fancied himself a playboy, gallivanting through the high society of 1880s New York City until the fortune his father made during the Civil War was lost in the post-war depression. Shelby found himself settling for a lowly position as a U.S. customs house appraiser and reporting to another man of failed dreams, Herman Melville. Lock's latest entry in his superb American Novels series (following The Wreckage of Eden, 2018) again features his remarkable eye for historical detail and fine-tuned felicity with the language of the period. At times, the sparkling prose is nearly indistinguishable from that of the authors Lock so clearly admires, Melville, Hawthorne, and Thoreau. Shelby narrates the story-within-a story to his friend Washington Roebling, engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge?a narrative device that allows Lock to weave Melville and Ross into various interactions with luminaries of the day, including Ulysses Grant and Samuel Clemens. The mellifluous language, literary allusions, and some subtle Moby-Dick parallels, such as Melville using a harpoon to kill rats in the hulls of ships, will delight fans of classic American literature.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)