Sailor: Book One

Sailor imagines an impassioned, bittersweet backstory for Walt Whitman's most crucial, but most mysterious, lover: Frederick B. Vaughan. Inspired by the novels of Herman Melville, Sailor portrays a sensitive young man whose vices alienate him from society. After a disastrous experience as a sailor, he joins the brotherhood of omnibus drivers in Manhattan. Determined to reform his reputation, he resists Walt Whitman's seductions until their encounters at an opera, a monumental fire, and a pl...