Whalefall: A Novel

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I was so impressed by Kraus’ work co-writing with del Toro that I read Kraus’ 2011 novel Rotters and very much enjoyed that as well. Whalefall is, quite simply, a beautiful novel—a must-read story of the sea, the nature of awe, and the briny relationships between fathers and sons. While the main action here is the incident with the whale, what this is really about is the complicated relationship between Jay and Mitt, father and son. At Imagine, we are passionate about bringing stories to the screen that convey the full range of the human experience, and Whalefall is a perfect addition.

Book Review: ‘Whalefall,’ by Daniel Kraus - The New York Times

Jay himself is a compelling character, and his personal issues elevate the novel from its simple premise. Jay’s journey from perplexity to comprehension is mirrored in the act of going into the darkness and emerging with newly discovered clarity. Whalefall is a mind-blowing, take-your-breath-away adventure, but it’s also a tender and moving story of the relationship between a father and son. It was like when blood spreads in water — gradually, all Jay saw was the brutality of certain aspects of Mitt, and not the pure waters beneath. A character study developed in the most intense crucible imaginable, Kraus’s latest novel is smart, surreal, and powerfully humane.io9: Moby Dick, probably the seminal whale-centric novel of our century, was replete with facts about whales that were, actually, very wrong. Daniel Kraus's rendering of this tale of survival is brilliant, simply consuming readers alive just as the whale swallowed Jay alive. Mitt also has two daughters, but his youngest is his son, and Jay gets to live through the vicarious and exacting tutelage of his father, almost constantly teaching, teaching, teaching - hammering into Jay all of this nautical wisdom with a single mindedness that suffocates his son, and with a sense of urgency that pushes Jay away. As a horror story, it's really good but what elevates it to great is the emotional tale of a seventeen-year-old boy struggling to survive the aftermath of a severely, dysfunctional father/son relationship that culminated with the suicide death of his overbearing father, leaving him drowning in overwhelming grief and guilt.

Whalefall | Daniel Kraus | 9781665918169 | NetGalley Whalefall | Daniel Kraus | 9781665918169 | NetGalley

But I loved the flashbacks to Jay's childhood, his fraught relationship with his father, the slow unfolding of what led him to be out in the bay, scuba diving for the first time in years, with a mesh bag to collect his father's bones. Not only is this book about a man swallowed by a whale, but it is also family dynamics, guilt, depression, illness, emotional/verbal abuse, a father-son relationship, and survival. Most people don’t dive there, as there is a canyon as deep as The Grand Canyon under the surface, and it’s easy to lose your way.

Jay Gardiner has given himself a fool’s errand—to find the remains of his deceased father in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Monastery Beach.