Beautiful Shipwreck - by Dominique Fortier (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

From the author of Pale Shadows, a delicate reimagining of the relationships that created the great American novel

While writing Moby Dick, Herman Melville meets Nathaniel Hawthorne, an encounter that alters the course of his life and his novel. From this true story of friendship, only a handful of Melville's letters remain. Inspired by the surviving correspondence, Dominique Fortier imagines the passionate relationship between the two authors: their desires, their domestic arrangements, Melville's struggle to write, and Hawthorne's powerful hold over Melville.

Melville's story is interspersed with the frantic scribbling of Lizzie, his wife, her words flying onto the page, her stream of consciousness ideas and talents not given the same time and space to develop as her husband's.

A third exchange unfolds between Fortier as she is writing the book and a companion who is half real, half imagined, a man she says is primarily a poem. Forming a bridge between past and present, Fortier's novel braids together these three parts, telling the story of the most beautiful of shipwrecks, Moby Dick.

Review Quotes

Praise for Pale Shadows:

'In these sensitive and luminous pages, Dominique Fortier explores, through Dickinson's poetry, the mysterious power that books have over our lives, and the fragile and necessary character of literature.' - The Carol Shields Prize for Fiction 2025 Jury on Pale Shadows

'Gorgeous, aching prose ... Pale Shadows is a breathtaking contemplation of grief, legacies, and how what a person leaves behind continues to change and inspire the world.' - ★ starred review, Foreword Reviews

'Fortier's pair of books speak to Dickinson's continued relevance.' - Shara Kronmal, Necessary Fiction

'I was as delighted by this book as I was by Paper Houses, in part because I was happy to return to the lacework world Fortier creates with her voice ... This handover between writers in time is the essence of literature. Because books do not die. That is the only consolation of mortals who read.' - Chantal Guy, La Presse

'Dominique Fortier's sixth novel, Pale Shadows, is enchanted ... It is meant to be taken in slowly, savouring each sentence.' - Ariane Cipriani, Radio-Canada's Culture Club

'This luminous story brings us closer to Emily Dickinson's poems, "leaves the light shines through," and closer to the inspired grace of Dominique Fortier.' - Monique Roy, Chatelaine

'Paper Houses and Pale Shadows are the positive and negative of a single image, two facets of the same story.' - Léa Harvey, Le Soleil

'A novel filled with figments and ghosts, the living and the dead, words and silence.' - Yvon Paré, Littérature du Québec

'I can't remember on what page I started to read Pale Shadows out loud, but it happened naturally. What I was left with, even more dazzlingly still, was the beauty of Dominique Fortier's prose and of Emily Dickinson's poetry ... Pale Shadows is an elegant, delicate book, a treasure for your bookcase.' - Marie-Anne Poggi, Club des irrésistibles

Praise for Paper Houses:

'An exquisite fictional imagining of Dickinson's life.' - Sue Carter, Toronto Star

'Its language is luminous, precise; its structure, ambitious.' - Le Devoir

'In Paper Houses, anecdotes from the lauded American poet's childhood and adult life are expanded into a chronological series of vignettes featuring truly Dickinsonian details.' - Carly Vandergriendt, Quill & Quire

About the Author

Writer and translator, Dominique Fortier weaves together novel, poetry and essay to build a body of work exploring history, fiction and the self. Her first novel, Du bon usage des étoiles (On the Proper Use of Stars), was nominated for a Governor General's Award and the Prix des Libraires du Québec, and Au péril de la mer (The Island of Books) won the Governor General's Award for French fiction. Les villes de papier (Paper Houses) won France's Prix Renaudot - Essai and has been translated into fifteen languages. Fortier is a member of the Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco literary council.

Rhonda Mullins is a Montréal-based translator who has translated many books from French into English, including Jocelyne Saucier's And Miles To Go Before I Sleep, Grégoire Courtois's The Laws of the Skies, Dominique Fortier's Pale Shadows, and Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette's Suzanne. She is a seven-time finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for Translation, winning the award in 2015 for her translation of Jocelyne Saucier's Twenty-One Cardinals. Her translation of Dominique Fortier's Pale Shadows was nominated for the 2025 International Dublin Literary Award. Her translations have been contenders for CBC Canada Reads in 2015 and 2019, and one was a finalist for the 2018 Best Translated Book Award. Mullins was the inaugural literary translator in residence at Concordia University in 2018. She is a mentor to emerging translators in the Banff International Literary Translation Program.