A legendary work of literary wizardry in which the author reckons with Christopher Columbus, America, myth, and his great-grandfather Herman Melville. First published in 1965, Genoa is Paul Metcalf’s literary masterpiece in which he attempts to purge the burden of his relationship to his great-grandfather Herman Melville. In his signature polyphonic style, a storm-tossed Indiana attic becomes the site of a reckoning with the life of Melville; with Columbus, and his myth; and between two brothers—one, an MD who refuses to practice; the other, an executed murderer. Genoa is a triumph, a novel without peer, that vibrates and sings a quintessentially American song. Includes an introduction by Rick Moody (The Ice Storm).