Genoa

The 50th anniversary edition of Metcalf’s extraordinary novel—with a new introduction by Rick Moody—is a reckoning with Columbus, America, myth, and his great-grandfather Herman Melville.

This is a 50th anniversary edition with a new introduction by Rick Moody.

First published in 1965, Genoa is Metcalf’s purging of the burden of his relationship to his great-grandfather Herman Melville. In his signature polyphonic style, the life of Melville, Melville’s use and conversion of the Columbus myth, and the story of the Mills brothers—one, an M.D. who refuses to practice, the other an executed murderer—vibrate and sing a quintessentially American song.