Book Review: “Whale Fall” by Elizabeth O’Connor

“Whale Fall”

By Elizabeth O’Connor

Pantheon Books, 2024

ISBN: 9780593700914

Sometimes a book finds you. And when it does, you discover you cannot put it down until you have read the last page. And when you have finished, it does not leave you. “Whale Fall,” by Elizabeth O’Connor is such a book.

Manod is an 18-year-old who lives on an island off the Welsh Coast with her father and younger sister. At the opening, a dead whale has been washed to the shore of the island, what the old-timers believe is a forewarning of trouble. Trouble is coming. It is 1938. Newspapers from the mainland, read weeks later, foretell of war. Hardship has forced many islanders to leave for employment on the mainland, leaving more empty than occupied houses.

For most of us, island daily life would be seen as trouble, even those who long for a simpler life. Islanders live on the lobsters and fish they pull from the sea in tiny boats. O’Connor describes an islander, “She was a thin woman, and when she sobbed the vertebrae of her spine stood out beneath her jumper like thorns.”

Sheep and cows graze freely. Seasons are told by the birds that flock in and then leave, marking the roofs, cliffs and caves with their remains. Clothing is refurbished from charity boxes sent by mainland churches. Manod unravels thread from silk gowns to make embroidered images of the island, including the whale. 

For Manod, trouble comes in the form of two ethnographers from the mainland. Because of her ability to speak both Welsh and English, she becomes their translator as they record and photograph island life, songs and folk tales. Manod longs to go to the university and is led to believe one of the ethnographers will take her. In the end she learns that the bleak island life is more true and valuable.

This is a rich story of discovery, longing, exploitation and loss. Hauntingly beautiful. O’Connor is a British author whose short stories have won awards. This is her debut novel; and hopefully, one of many to follow.

– Mary Barbera