Have you ever wonder what it would be like to leave your home and country and travel to the South Seas, search for the perfect isolated island, and write your great novel?
Well, wonder no more as Publish Authority has recently republished the book, Mr. Moonlight and the South Seas, written by Brandon Oswald, which tells this story.
Mr. Moonlight of the South Seas is a biography style non-fiction book that captures the adventurous life of American author Robert Dean Frisbie who lived in the South Seas from 1920 to his death in 1948. Although he is part of a long line of South Seas writers that began with the likes of Herman Melville and Robert Louis Stevenson, Frisbie did what very few of these writers did- he stayed in the Pacific for the rest of his life. He first arrived in Tahiti, French Polynesia, where he met his long-time friend and author, James Norman Hall and the two remain friends for the rest of their lives. After about four years in Tahiti, Frisbie left for the tiny atoll of Pukapuka, Cook Islands, where he hoped that the isolated island would suit his needs to become a great writer. As the only white man on the island, Frisbie would marry, have children and live a life completely different from those of his American contemporaries. His writings would put Pukapuka on the map and his adventures would become the stuff of Pacific Islands’ lore.
Journalist and author Eric Watkins, wrote a compelling review of Mr. Moonlight of the South Seas:
“…In an essay devoted to the works of Robert Dean Frisbie, literary scholar Natasha Potocnik laments this neglect and notes that “his work has not been given sufficient critical attention despite its artistic merit, and for this very reason it is important to introduce this author and his literary work to the wider public.”
That is precisely where Brandon Oswald enters with his own study of Frisbie, called Mr. Moonlight of the South Seas.
An archivist by profession and founder of the Island Culture Archival Support, Oswald holds Robert Dean Frisbie in unabashed esteem. Describing Frisbie as “part of a long line of South Seas writers that began with Herman Melville and Robert Louis Stevenson,” Oswald says Frisbie stood apart from those writers by doing what few of them could do: “After going to the Pacific, he stayed there for the rest of his life.”
As Oswald describes it, Frisbie’s life in the Pacific – from his arrival in 1920 to his death in 1948 – was anything but idyllic due, not least, to the chronic penury of a writer who probably received more rejection slips than paychecks. Still, Frisbie never gave up on his love of the South Seas or his dream of writing the one great novel that would seal his reputation, just as Moby Dick had sealed Melville’s…”
The new printing of Mr. Moonlight of the South Seas can be found at:
Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble and the Publish Authority Website.
Also, check out author Brandon Oswald’s Website
Island Time 