Whalefall, a Diver's Novel Like No Other

As a hardened diver, the idea of a novel based on a scuba diver being inhaled by a sperm whale seemed too far-fetched to read. However, Whalefall is the creation of the celebrated Daniel Karus, who collaborated with Guillermo del Toro to write the Academy Award-winning film The Shape of Water. So, I picked it up, and soon I found myself inside that dark, dank, putrid gullet of a sperm whale, pulling hard on my regulator and struggling in panic to get out. I couldn't put the book down.

Jay Gardiner is a 17-year-old seasoned diver, the son of a grisly but revered local diver and fisherman who died months before in the waters off Monastery Bay (where I happened to make my first dive after certification) in Monterey, California. Jay sets off on a solo dive to find his father's remains but unexpectedly finds himself, along with the whale's real target, a giant squid, sucked violently into a sperm whale's throat. As the peristatic waves pull the panicking Gardiner and the squid deep inside, he realizes, with less than a full tank of air, there may be no way out. As he struggles to find a way, the progressing chapter titles - 2060, 1993, 1966 - let you know how much air his depth gauge's luminous dial tells him he has left. Together with Jay, I could feel the squid the whale ingested react as the whale's slippery esophagus tightened to crush me in the slosh and seawater. Jay can occasionally see by the dim light of the phosphorescence the whale had inhaled. He struggles, minute by minute, trying to control his breath, to squeeze upward and hopefully out. But what use are those fins? And what about that cumbersome tank on his back? He's got to get it off and push it ahead of him, as a cave diver would. And while he struggles, the memories of his family and his father, his love and hatred growing up, drive him. His father's words haunt him, demanding that he find a way.

Every review I read about Whalefall (what they call a whale corpse on the bottom of the ocean, where it's food for other species) supported its scientific accuracy, from the whale's behavior to its inner passages. The physiology and gear of diving are spot on (though I did catch that dreaded term "oxygen tank" on the inside jacket).

The story mesmerized me. His resourcefulness will keep you pulling for him, breath after breath.

- Ben Davison

If you want to support Undercurrent's favorite small independent book, the Four Eyed Frog on California's Mendocino Coast, you can order Whalefall here for $27.99 plus $3.50 postage: https://tinyurl.com/3jvfm6t4