1852. In the wake of Moby-Dick’s commercial and critical failure, Herman Melville travels to Nantucket with his father-in-law. The writer is also reeling from another blow, the end of his enigmatic relationship with Nathaniel Hawthorne, the Muse that guided the novel’s gestation. When Melville encounters an abandoned widow on the island’s moors, he’s struck by an idea for another book. But are his motives artistic…or is he trying to find a way back into Hawthorne’s life?