My favorite fiction character is…
Moby Dick’s Captain Ahab. The character is multi-dimensional. At the lowest level, he is the archetype of the Yankee whaler – men who gambled life and limb to light the lamps of the world, and often lost, as he did. Next there is his psychological profile; his mad obsession with a dumb brute he is convinced is a mere facade for some un-nameable spiritual force: "I’ll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway maelstrom, and round perdition’s flames before I give him up… till he spouts black blood and rolls fin out." Finally there is the age-old soul struggle between Calvinism and free will: "This whole act’s been immutably decreed. T’was rehearsed by thee and me a billion years before this ocean rolled." he tells Starbuck. He is both Hamlet and MacBeth.
About the Author
David Churchill Barrow
David Churchill Barrow is a Massachusetts “Swamp Yankee” descendant of William Bradford and Myles Standish of Pilgrim fame, who grew up on a farm that has not been sold since first built in the early 1700s. In that farmhouse still hangs the commission of James Churchill as a captain in the Massachusetts militia signed by John Hancock, and the sword of Thomas Churchill, a Navy engineer who served in the Blockade of the Confederacy. David’s father, David Bradford Barrow, was a Marine gentleman farmer who commanded a flame-thrower tank in the Battle of Saipan in WW II.
David’s childhood was mostly spent in the woods and swamps of Southeast Massachusetts, building forts and pretending to be Daniel Boone, the Little Drummer Boy of Shiloh, or just an unnamed “Minuteman” making ready to “fire the shot heard round the world.” He has lived and breathed history since first opening his eyes.
He met his wife MaryLu in high school. They were married in 1979 and have three adult children. MaryLu is a former elementary school teacher working on her first children’s book. Today they live just outside Tampa, Florida, with their
Berger Blanc Suisse Attila and their two cats, Minnie and Tink.
David has written non-fiction historical pieces and columns for
The Tampa Tribune (now the Tampa Bay Times),
The Marine Corps Gazette and the “
Lore of the Corps” section of
The Marine Corps Times. He has been a regular contributor of both short stories and posts to
Liberty Island Magazine since its inception. He and MaryLu co-authored
Silver and Lead and are working together on a YA novel centered around the so-called “Boston Massacre.”
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