1) Even if they’ve never read it, most people know Moby Dick as a story of Ahab seeking revenge against the white whale who bit off his leg. In Kill Ahab, the roles are reversed. What causes White Whale’s desire for vengeance against Ahab and how does it evolve over the course of the novel? How is that desire mediated? How does this parallel with Ahab’s quest for vengeance?
2) In the prologue, the white whale has a long soliloquy about his name, where he parodies two of the most famous writers in the English language. “What’s in a name?” he asks. “A rose fish by any other name would smell as salty.” Then later, “Call me...anything. But do not call me Moby Dick.” What is the significance of these lines? What role does naming play throughout the book? How do whales get their names and what does that say about their culture?
3) Family is an important theme in the story? Discuss the relationships between White Whale and his mother; between White Whale and Ocean-Glory; between White Whale and Sea-Turtle. How do family dynamics byplay out between other members of the pod? How does the editor’s relationship to his human family evolve over the course of the book?
4) How do the whales in the pod support and cooperate with one another, for example, in birthing and care of offspring, in hunting and eating, in mourning? In what ways do the novel’s depictions of these behaviors echo what you know about whales in the real world?
5) Most whale pod populations are largely female and their structure is matriarchal. How is this shown in the pod that White Whale is adopted into?
6) The whales in this story are unapologetically “earthy.” Discuss some examples of this. Did any of the whales’ behaviors surprise you?
7) Language plays an important role in the novel, from the various types of whales who click different dialects to interspecies communication. What is the author trying to say in his specific depictions of language? To what degree is this embedded in the language of the novel itself?
8) White Whale has a complicated relationship with time. His narration of his life sometimes has events that don’t line up chronologically. He seems to have two different birthdays, years apart, making his exact age difficult to reckon. How old is he and could he really be that old? Discuss the role of time in the novel.
9) When whales die in the book, their companions say, “Ocean has fed you. Now feed Ocean.” To what extant is this an environmental message? Give more examples.
10) White Whale’s “confessions” are framed as interviews between the whale and his editor. Describe that relationship and how it changes over the course of the book. How do each of these characters evolve?
11) Kill Ahab claims to be “edited and annotated” by a writer/professor named “Phil Adamo.” Is this “editor” Phil Adamo the same as the author of the novel? Or is he just a character with the same name? To what extent does the presence of “Phil Adamo” add credence to the story? What does or does not make him a reliable narrator? What role do the many footnotes play in your answer?
12) In a footnote in the Epilogue, the editor mentions an email exchange with Matt Hooper of the Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts. The book’s Afterword is written by Pierre Aronnax, a professor in the Museum of Natural History in Paris. Who are they and why have they been included in this story?
13) Kirkus Reviews called Kill Ahab “a new spin on the Melville classic. A modern literary reworking that ebbs and flows but captures the spirit of its inspiration.” If you’ve read Moby Dick, do you agree with this critique and why? How does this critique and your experience with Kill Ahab make you want to read Melville’s classic again? If you’ve never read Moby Dick, does this critique and your experience with Kill Ahab make you want to read Melville’s classic for the first time? Why?
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