Sailor Twain

Starred review from September 3, 2012
In a work that calls to mind Conrad’s enigmatic short story “The Secret Sharer,” we follow the story of Captain Twain, a steamboat captain who discovers a wounded mermaid clinging to the side of his ship. Twain secretly brings her aboard, stows her in his cabin, and nurses her back to health, developing a strong attachment to her in the process. As he begins to learn her story, he recognizes that it may have a connection to correspondence between Dieudonné de Lafayette, the womanizing proprietor of the steamboat line, and writer C.G. Beaverton. Lafayette spends his days in endless conquest of the women who board his steamboat, which keeps him distracted enough that he doesn’t discover Twain’s secret stowaway. What readers eventually discover about the mermaid and her world brings about a series of dramatic events that lead to the story’s remarkable conclusion. Siegel’s strength as a storyteller is in knowing precisely how to balance the verbal and the visual, sometimes taking us for two or three pages on a wordless sequence that says so much more than dialogue ever could. As well, the manner in which he presents both the real and the fantastic shows his profound understanding of both worlds.

November 15, 2012

Captain Elijah Twain's steamboat is named the Lorelei, so we know we're in for a romantic tragedy. This one incorporates a mystery, a sailor's yarn, and a fairy tale. As Twain explains to the mysterious, lovely Camomile in a smoky tavern--he found a wounded mermaid crawling onto deck, took her to his cabin, and saved her life. Now he's stuck with a bewitching secret finny friend, a loving wife ashore, a riverboat owner suddenly interested in bedding anything in skirts, and a book of river folklore penned by one "C.G. Beaverton." Clues and drama swirl around each other as the name "Twain" presages the captain's fate. Siegel's perfectly plotted and beguiling puzzle story pours out in smoky charcoal-and-penciled art, the backgrounds dreamy but realistic and the characters somewhat more cartoonish. His renderings of women's period clothing are delightful and his handling of class and ethnicity in the era is first rate. VERDICT Beautiful and bewitching itself, Sailor Twain combines romance, drama, fantasy, high tragedy, and American myth into a satisfying delight. Adults who love fables and are looking for something quirky may be drawn to this, as well as those fond of folklore-inspired fiction.--M.C.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 15, 2012
Siegel has drawn both a graphic novel (To Dance, 2006, by his wife, Siena Cherson Siegel) and his own picture books (Moving House, 2011), but in this spellbinding work his art takes both a giant step forward and a drifting look back. Rendered entirely in charcoal pencil, the panels evoke both the misty haze of river water and a foggy cloud of memory, as Captain Twain recounts an episode aboard the Lorelei, a luxury steamboat on the mighty Hudson River in 1887. Life on board has Twain suspended between tending the ship and its needy passengers and barely tolerating the French cad who owns the liner and uses it as grazing ground for his sexual exploitsuntil the night he finds a harpoon-pierced mermaid clawing her way aboard. As he secretly nurses her back to health in his cabin, Twain falls under a many-layered siren song of physical desire, creative inspiration, and emotional severance from his life on land and ailing wife at home. Siegel's novel of obsessive romance and mythological realism churns through deep pools of humor, passion, and darkness. Studied panoramas of the intricate working of steamboats will steal away whatever breath you have left over from the mermaid's beauty and the story's outright tension as it steers toward a complex, catastrophic climax. Though serialized online, this is a luxurious graphic novel in its print form and is absolutely not to be missed.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)