When the sea went strange: A Minnesota connection to the National Book Awards
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Ethan Rutherford, 46, recalls the moment in September that his day “went sideways in the best possible way.”
He was lying on his couch, waiting for his kids to get ready to go somewhere, when he got a “Congratulations!” text from a friend. Then his editor called with clarifying news: his debut novel, “North Sun: Voyage of the Whaleship Esther” had made the longlist for the National Book Award for Fiction.
On Tuesday, Rutherford’s novel had advanced to the shortlist for the 2025 National Book Award in Fiction.
Published by a small press, his novel was one of 10 chosen by judges out of a field of 424 works.
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Rutherford spent formative writing time in Minnesota. He earned his Master of Fine Arts in fiction at the University of Minnesota in 2009, and he lived and taught in the Twin Cities for several years.
He has published two short story collections, one of which won a Minnesota Book Award. Rutherford is now an associate professor of English at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., though he's currently spending a sabbatical year in Spain.
He’s well aware that writing a book set on a whaling ship brings up immediate comparisons with “Moby Dick,” and he loves Herman Melville’s masterpiece. But where Melville goes big, detailed and dense, Rutherford goes minimalist. He writes short, lyrical chapters that draw the reader in with details plucked from his careful research.
He likes to caution readers that the book gets strange:
“Sort of the first half is a very traditional whaling narrative set at the end of the American whaling industry. And then about halfway through, it sort of turns into a fever dream, and it becomes a little mythological.”
The novel is set at a moment in history when whales have been hunted almost to extinction, pushing whalers on longer voyages into the Arctic, chasing diminishing returns.
Rutherford was struck by the brutality of the practice — he became a vegetarian because of his research — as well as the toll of that extraction industry on the environment.
“Slaughtering whales to turn them into energy — that seemed very close to what is depressing me about the way that we are sort of not addressing climate issues,” Rutherford said.
The longer the crew on the whaleship Esther is at sea, the more they drift from the expectations of the everyday world. That's when one myth-inspired character arrives: a half-bird, half-man character named Old Sorrel, whose imagined image graces the book’s cover.
Old Sorrel was sparked by Rutherford’s research into the folklore of sailors.
“There was a story in particular about a sort of spirit who would come aboard a ship, sort of about halfway through its voyage, and he was just like a little gremlin,” Rutherford said.
“He would go untie knots and sort of cause a little bit of trouble. He wasn't necessarily harmful, except if the people aboard could see him, suddenly, they would know that the ship was doomed.”
In Rutherford’s book, Old Sorrel shows himself to the cabin boys, protecting them while signifying that this voyage will not end well for the Esther.
As the National Book Award Judges found, it’s worth the ride. And, there are two ways to experience the novel. Rutherford’s friend Peter C. Murray composed companion music for the length of the novel. It’s available on Bandcamp.
The shortlist for the National Book Award will be released on Tuesday. The winner will be announced on Nov. 19.
