Bookworm, no. 36

A review of Deirdre Kessler’s “Darwin’s Hornpipe.” Leighton Schreyer on a doctor’s path to reconciliation. A cover artist Q&A. Finalists for the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize. Inside the April issue.

The Irishman

Darwin’s Hornpipe
Deirdre Kessler
Penumbra Press
192 pages, softcover

Set in the nineteenth century, Darwin’s Hornpipe tells the story of William McDonough, a young Irish American sailor who gets thrown off a whaling vessel near the Galápagos Islands and winds up fighting the Confederacy in Louisiana. Drawing upon her great-grandfather’s actual …