DAUGHTERS OF NANTUCKET: Exclusive Excerpt

March 14, 2023 | By Women Writers Women Books | Reply More

We are delighted to feature this exclusive excerpt from Julia Gerstenblatt’s DAUGHTERS OF NANTUCKET!

DAUGHTERS OF NANTUCKET

“Gerstenblatt’s distinctive tale, a triumph in storytelling, celebrates the courage and tenacity of women.” —Booklist, starred review

Set against Nantucket’s Great Fire of 1846, this sweeping, emotional novel brings together three courageous women battling to save everything they hold dear…

Nantucket in 1846 is an island set apart not just by its geography but by its unique circumstances. With their menfolk away at sea, often for years at a time, women here know a rare independence—and the challenges that go with it.

Eliza Macy is struggling to conceal her financial trouble as she waits for her whaling captain husband to return from a voyage. In desperation, she turns against her progressive ideals and targets Meg Wright, a pregnant free Black woman trying to relocate her store to Main Street. Meanwhile, astronomer Maria Mitchell loves running Nantucket’s Atheneum and spending her nights observing the stars, yet she fears revealing the secret wishes of her heart.

On a sweltering July night, a massive fire breaks out in town, quickly kindled by the densely packed wooden buildings. With everything they possess now threatened, these three very different women are forced to reevaluate their priorities and decide what to save, what to let go and what kind of life to rebuild from the ashes of the past.

“A memorable story of friendship and courage.” —Pam Jenoff, New York Times bestselling author of The Lost Girls of Paris

EXCERPT

Chapter One

Eliza

In the heat of summer, gossip spreads through Nantucket town like wildfire.

Everyone on the island knows that, including Eliza Macy. Usually, Eliza enjoys the chatter of the women in town, the way her neighbors walk and talk with baskets of goods on their arms as they exchange tales along the busy, brick-paved and cobbled streets that lead to the harbor, where thousands of kegs of oil wait to be processed and shipped. Usually, she’s very much a part of that very chitchat. On any given Monday, she might lean in close over a barrel of grain at Adams and Parker as so-and-so says such-and-such about you-know-who. And although she’s not proud of it, Eliza has been known to follow a small cluster of ladies out of Hannah Hamblin’s candy store on Petticoat Row just to catch the end of a particularly juicy tidbit about a Starbuck or a Coffin, prominent families on the island, even if she hasn’t yet purchased the black licorice whips she came in for. But today turns out to be anything but an ordinary Monday, which is why Eliza isn’t out socializing in town.

The morning begins with a vexing conversation with her husband Henry in the kitchen of their stately Colonial home on Upper Main Street.

“But, what do you mean, Henry? How can you possibly stay out at sea when we need you here at home?” Eliza asks. There is no answer. Eliza continues. “I just wish you would be clearer in your intentions. Less obtuse. It can be so very frustrating to be married to you!”

Well, not a “conversation,” exactly. How can one possibly be speaking with one’s husband when he has been off at sea for almost four years? Conversations exist mostly in her mind—and when she’s really annoyed, aloud—in a pretend dialogue with an absentee man. In reality, these conversations are monologues, long letters sent back and forth across the globe. Delayed worries and emotions so stale that by the time they get a response, Eliza’s concerns have moved on to something else entirely. In a letter, Henry will present a solution to a problem three months old—the leak in the roof Eliza has since gotten fixed, the seasonal cold that one of their twin daughters Mattie has recovered from—and think he is being helpful! And so Eliza thanks her husband of twenty years for his thoughtful ideas and lets him believe anything he says from the Pacific Ocean is meaningful to her everyday existence. Then she tells him what she really thinks from her kitchen. Alone.

The letter from Henry she receives this morning, by way of a sailor passing through to Nova Scotia, is one such missive. On folded parchment, in his slanting script, Henry informs Eliza of his new plans. She reads the line aloud to herself, imagining Henry’s deep baritone filling their home. “Although I promised to be back on Nantucket this summer, my love, this trip has been delayed due to unforeseen complications,” his letter says.

Eliza is trying to enjoy a cup of tea, while sitting at the small table tucked under the windows in a corner of their bright kitchen. The tea tastes bland and watery, for she is trying to conserve sugar. And tea leaves. She reaches to the wooden shelf on the wall beside her, locating the dark glass bottle of laudanum, and adds a dash or two of the powder into her china cup. She closes her eyes and holds the bitter liquid in her mouth for a second to let it cool before swallowing. There. The hot tea is surprisingly refreshing as she gulps it down, one quick sip after another, knowing the medicine will do the trick and ease whatever ails her. Nerves. Loneliness. Headache. Heartburn. Three to four times a day, the dosage on the vial suggests. Better to take more than less, to ensure effectiveness. It’s readily available on island, so Eliza can always get more at the apothecary when she runs out.

She reads the letter again.

“What unforeseen complications, Henry? Please do tell!”

Henry doesn’t specify, leaving her confused. What else is there possibly to do at sea but catch and kill whales, dismantle them by means of stinking, gory masculinity, and turn the massive mammals into profits? Isn’t that what the captain of a whaling ship does, for goodness’ sake? Grow his whiskers long and bark at his crew and risk life and limb in pursuit of oil?

He says only that he’s reached the port of New Orleans and not to worry.

A puzzle. Apart from the obvious annoyances this letter implies—that she and her children, who haven’t seen Henry for forty-plus months, will have to wait even longer for his presence—is the practical impact that delayed return will have. For Eliza Macy, on dry land, is out of household money. And, until Henry’s ship comes in, weighed down with its hundreds of barrels of oil, albeit liquid gold (God willing!), no more money is to be found. She has gotten used to trading candles for goods and services, but now she is even running low on them.

Eliza takes a break from her worries by calling out to her teenaged twins, getting ready for the day in their bedroom above the kitchen. “Girls! Breakfast! School!”

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Julie Gerstenblatt holds a doctorate in education in Curriculum and Instruction from Teachers College, Columbia University. Her essays have appeared in The Huffington Post, Grown&Flown, and Cognoscenti, among others. When not writing, Julie is a college essay coach, as well as a producer and on-air host for A Mighty Blaze. A native New Yorker, Julie now lives in coastal Rhode Island with her family and one very smart shichon poo. Daughters of Nantucket is her first novel.