American writers have long sought to compose "the great American novel," or "America's epic." Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn and F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby have been advanced as plausible contenters for the title, but no work can mount a more substantial claim than Herman Melville's Moby Dick, or the whale. Shutt guides listeners on a fascinating investigation of the tale, examining the work as a whole and exploring the life of its creator, Herman Melville.