The Anatomist's Tale
The Anatomist's Tale
by Tauno Biltsted
A Foreword INDIES Finalist
“With all the authenticity of the social historian, Biltsted writes in a swift, beautiful style. These ‘confessions’ lead to an inevitable destination, leaving the reader pensive, satisfied, and ever willing to lend a hand, hoist a sail, and set out anew.”
—Peter Linebaugh, author of Red Round Globe Hot Burning
Born into abject poverty in the British Empire, our narrator aspires to a better life as a ship’s surgeon—until a tyrannical captain provokes a mutiny, forcing him into a life of piracy and eventually to a tropical commune of maroons called New Madagascar.
Told through a series of confessions to those who visit the narrator during his imprisonment at Marshalsea, The Anatomist's Tale relates one man’s brush with the heady freedom of outlaws—and the price of returning to “civilization.”
Tauno Biltsted has been a cab driver, squatter on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, mediator and facilitator, and roustabout construction worker. His fiction has been published in Rosebud Magazine and the Akashic Books Mondays are Murder series, and his nonfiction has been published in World War 3 Illustrated, Wobblies!: A Graphic History of the IWW, and Perspectives on Anarchist Theory. He holds a master’s degree in International Relations.
Praise for The Anatomist’s Tale
“Tauno Biltsted's The Anatomist's Tale is a marvel of knowingness and concision: a tale of piracy on the high seas which steers clear of melodrama (though there's plenty of drama), and opts instead for a rich and surprising account of the society of pirates, and the ocean deserts and island paradises in which they lived. This short book contains a vast world.”
—Paul La Farge, author of The Night Ocean
“This is a sad story of exile from the English homeland and a salty tale of piracy in the Caribbean, which leads to further adventures on four of the Seven Seas and the discovery of a curious self-governing utopia among Kru, Maya, Irish, Welsh, and scouser maroons in Central America. With all the authenticity of the social historian, Biltsted writes in a swift, beautiful style. These ‘confessions’ lead to an inevitable destination, leaving the reader pensive, satisfied, and ever willing to lend a hand, hoist a sail, and set out anew.”
—Peter Linebaugh, author of Red Round Globe Hot Burning
