Bartleby’s Revenge is a coming of age story that follows two childhood friends, Jimmy Lemond and Peter LeBlanc, as they negotiate their complex childhood relationship in Houma, Louisiana. The haunting death of Peter’s father on an ill-fated fishing trip, and the impact of Peter’s sexual dysphoria shape their lives into their upward years.
While many novels have chronicled the impact of the Viet Nam War on those who saw active duty, Bartleby’s Revenge is witness to Jimmy and Peter’s inner turmoil as, like Herman Melville’s inscrutable character, Bartleby, they decide, each in their own unique way, that they “prefer not to” take up arms. Jimmy’s tenure as a student journalist finds him on the front lines of student protest of the Viet Nam War and the intense struggle to end racism and segregation in his college community. Peter joins the Mennonites for peace work in Viet Nam and discovers in the Mother Goddess rituals spiritual confirmation of his gender transformation to Patty. Once Jimmy decamps from journalism to literary studies, his obsession with Melville’s Bartleby takes a strange turn when he sees his childhood friend on the evening news broadcast. Peter, now Patty, is captain of a LGBTQ shrimping crew protesting the continuing legacy of the BP oil industry on their Gulf fishing grounds. Patty has escaped to sea and Jimmy feels compelled to track her down.
