If you suffer from thalassophobia (the fear of deep bodies of water and what might lurk unseen in them) or cetophobia (the fear of whales) then Daniel Kraus’s scientific thriller, Whalefall, might not be high on your list to read. That said, if you’re in the mood to read something like Andy Weir’s The Martian meets Jonah and the Whale with some family drama mixed in, then this one’s for you. And you should do it soon — the movie version is arriving this October from No One Will Save You writer-director Brian Duffield.
First published in August 2023, Whalefall tells the story of Jay Gardner, a young man who is grieving the death of his seafaring father. While he is never described as being overtly abusive toward Jay, it’s clear that Mitt Gardner’s relationship with the ocean and diving has become suffocating, and drives father and son apart. Despite their emotionally tumultuous relationship, Jay is determined to find his father’s remains where they rest in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California — a nearly impossible task — in order to gain some semblance of closure. While Jay’s dive goes according to plan at first, things take a horrific turn when he is caught in the tentacles of a giant squid and, subsequently, eaten by an oblivious eighty-foot sperm whale looking for a snack.
As time passes in the belly of the beast, a badly injured Jay breathes the methane in the whale’s stomach and, in his altered and terrified state, he begins to imagine that the whale and his father are metaphorically one and the same. The result is a frantic, claustrophobic race against the clock as Jay is forced to call upon the lessons that his father taught him while trapped in the belly of the beast, all with only an hour of oxygen left in his tank.
Whalefall’s chapters are quick (some only a sentence long), each one packing an emotional punch as they alternate between Jay’s past spent with his father and the dire situation he finds himself in. To make matters even more stressful, each chapter spent in the present has a heading at the top letting readers know the PSI that Jay has left — essentially counting down until he runs out of oxygen entirely. Yes, it’s a book with a video game air meter.
There’s something undeniably alien and outer space-like about the ocean and what lies unseen beneath the waves, a quality that fans of The Martian will no doubt enjoy in this book and that Kraus vividly brings to life. While not a horror novel in the classic sense (there are no jump scares, ghosts — besides those of the past — or exorcisms here), there is something truly stomach-turning and pulse-pounding about the idea of being trapped in the stomach of a sperm whale with no feasible way out. Known for his previous collaborations with George A. Romero, Pay the Piper and The Living Dead, as well as Angel Down, a horror novel set during WWI that’s cleverly written in one harrowing, breathless sentence, Kraus is clearly no stranger to making his readers’ palms a little sweaty.
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Perhaps the most exciting, action-packed scene in the book, though, is the fight that takes place between the giant squid and the sperm whale moments before Jay is eaten by the whale alive. The clash of the two creatures is reminiscent of a Kaiju battle, hammering home just how small and powerless Jay is in comparison and how dangerous the ocean can be.
Fans who have already read Whalefall and those who have just added it to their TBR pile will be excited to learn that Kraus’s thriller is headed to the big screen this fall. Directed by Brian Duffield (who also produced Cocaine Bear) and written by Duffield and Kraus, the movie stars Austin Abrams as Jay, Josh Brolin as his father, Emily Rudd, Elizabeth Shue, and Jane Levy.
Whalefall, the book, is avaialble at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org or wherever you get your reads.
