Sailor Twain

Sailor Twain, or The Mermaid in the Hudson is a graphic novel, written and drawn by Mark Siegel and published in 2012 by First Second Books.

Plot summary

The story takes place in 1887 in the Hudson Valley, on the steamboat Lorelei. Sailor Twain is told in a series of flashbacks, starting with the night that Elijah Twain, the captain of the ship, finds an injured mermaid clinging to the deck. He hides the mermaid in his quarters and gives her medical care. In turn, she breaks his writer's block and inspires him to create. When in port, Twain visits with his invalid wife, Pearl; while on the Lorelei, he is a victim of the entrancing mermaid.

The owner of the Lorelei, Lafayette, begins to act strangely after his brother drowns under mysterious circumstances. A notorious ladiesman, he takes his courtship with the women who board the Lorelei very seriously. Lafayette also spends his time poring over a volume about the history of the occult in the Hudson Valley written by C.G. Beaverton. Twain notices his strange behavior, and becomes suspicious of Lafayette when the mermaid vanishes from his quarters.

Life aboard the Lorelei grows tumultuous as Lafayette and Twain search for the missing mermaid. Lafayette believes the mermaid’s song was responsible for his brother’s death and has sworn to break her spell by killing her, or by finding seven loves, as C.G. Beaverton’s book advises. Twain, driven by lust and creative frustration, tries to protect the mermaid from Lafayette.

When the reclusive Beaverton pays the Lorelei a visit in response to Lafayette’s letters, it is revealed that the author is female, and destined to be Lafayette’s seventh and truest love. The mermaid, restored to health, asks Twain to aid her in breaking a curse put on her by her father. By using a magical pendant Twain follows her to her undersea lair, only to find the shadows of the mermaid’s past victims.

On the Lorelei, Lafayette and Beaverton consummate their love, and the mermaid’s spell over him is broken. In breaking her spell, Lafayette has also denied the mermaid her chance to break the curse. The enraged mermaid allows Twain to escape, only to have the chaos aboard the Lorelei boil over, resulting in a massive explosion in the boiler rooms. Twain, Lafayette, and many of the Lorelei’s passengers are killed in a massive explosion.

The book's concludes with a series of dreamlike vignettes that, while intriguing, some readers find hard to understand.

Serialization

The book was originally serialized online from 2010 to 2012, where it received 800,000 unique visitors. Alongside installments of the book, Siegel published a companion blog, where he posted the songs, stories, maps, and other findings that comprised his research. He also hosted discussions with readers and included portraits of some of the comic’s fans in the book.

Critical reception

Sailor Twain received positive reviews from a number of publications including starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly and Booklist, who wrote,

“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.”

“A gripping novel with compelling characters, enhanced by haunting, erotically charged drawings.” – John Irving

“This extraordinary work of fiction pushes the graphic novel well beyond its previous limits. The narrative takes us on many journeys through space and time, but is more than a mere tale. It’s about the past and present, the absolute importance of myth, of language, of stories themselves. In superb words and drawings, it also explores obsession and love in a way that is original to the genre, and to literature itself. In the best sense, the completed work succeeds in a very difficult task: making the reader more human. Bravo!” – Pete Hamill

“A romance in the truest sense of the word, Sailor Twain is a marvel of graphical beauty and complex, intelligent storytelling. Siegel creates a misty, magical Hudson river that is somehow realer and truer and more seductive and many fathoms deeper than the real thing.” – Lev Grossman

Sailor Twain beyond the page

• New York Public Library exhibit “Sailor Twain’s New York: Secrets & Mysteries of the River Hudson” from October 2012 to April 2013
• Mark Twain House exhibit
• Millbrook Winery released two Sailor Twain Series wines “Rivermaiden” and “Secret of the Hudson” for which Siegel drew the labels
• New York City jewelery designer Allison Hourcade created “The River Opener” pendant, which appears in the story. The pendant is included in her RockLove Jewelry "Anthology Collection" (www.rocklove.com) and was featured in the New York Public Library.
• Designer created stationery for the Lorelei steamboat, based on letterhead designs of 19th century steamboats

Author cameos in Sailor Twain

• Walt Whitman
• Joseph Conrad
• Virginia Wolfe
• Emily Dickinson
• John Irving
• Pete Hamill
• Edgar Allan Poe
• Stephen King

See also

• Hudson River
• The Gilded Age
• Hudson River Sloop Clearwater
• Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn
• Washington Irving

External links

• Sailor Twain website
• Publisher's page

Interviews

• Newsarama
• USA Today
• Kotaku

Additional reviews

• Unshelved
• MTV Geek
• Publisher's Weekly
• Comics Waiting Room
• Comic Book Resources