Whalefall

A Novel

By: Daniel Kraus

Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne

Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

A USA TODAY BESTSELLER
Named a Best Book of 2023 by Book Riot, Shelf Awareness, and NPR

The Martian meets 127 Hours in this “astoundingly great” (Gillian Flynn, #1 New York Times bestselling author) and scientifically accurate thriller about a scuba diver who’s been swallowed by an eighty-foot, sixty-ton sperm whale and has only one hour to escape before his oxygen runs out.

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. He knows it’s a long shot, but Jay feels it’s the only way for him to lift the weight of guilt he has carried since his dad’s death by suicide the previous year.

The dive begins well enough, but the sudden appearance of a giant squid puts Jay in very real jeopardy, made infinitely worse by the arrival of a sperm whale looking to feed. Suddenly, Jay is caught in the squid’s tentacles and drawn into the whale’s mouth where he is pulled into the first of its four stomachs. He quickly realizes he has only one hour before his oxygen tanks run out—one hour to defeat his demons and escape the belly of a whale.

Suspenseful and cinematic, Whalefall is an “powerfully humane” (Owen King, New York Times bestselling author) thriller about a young man who has given up on life…only to find a reason to live in the most dangerous and unlikely of places.

©2023 Daniel Kraus (P)2023 Simon & Schuster Audio

This is not an action story!

This is a haunting story about death, mourning, and family and it's devastatingly beautiful. Best story of the year for me, so far, and one of my top 10 of all time. The comparison to The Martin sets you up for an optimistic and fun story of survival and that's just not what this is. You'll find yourself fighting tears more than biting your nails.

Some folks didn't like the narrator but I thought Kirby was excellent and I look forward to experiencing more that he's done. Additionally, some people found the flashbacks to bring a weird rhythm, but the pacing and structure made me think of Arrival by Ted Chiang.

Overall, I'm sad I can only experience this for the first time once. Great read.

Mind bending adventure

This was an adventure into a world few of us have experienced. Totally grabs the reader and inserts them into another world and dimension. The possibility of escape keeps you on your toes!

Slow start but it gets better

I read this with my a book club. I thought it took to get to the inciting incident.

Not what it’s billed as

There’s nothing wrong with the production of this. Kirby Heyborne did a great job with what he had to work with, but this is not really a thriller, or a horror novel. It’s kind of a story about grief and forgiveness, but that is marred by the fact that it also perpetuates a tired cliche about how your abusive parent wasn’t Really That Bad and You Should Forgive Them.

If you’ve had to cut a parent or other relative out of your life, this book is likely to be incredibly frustrating.

Aside from that, there’s just not enough meat on the bone to make this a full length story. The actual diving and eaten-by-whale parts are just not given enough meaningful page time to provide a sense of urgency to things, especially with the constant flashbacks that completely derail narrative tension.

Great writing and narration - perfect together.

Holy carp. Daniel Kraus pulled this one off. Not only that but he freakin' killed it.

I was fortunate enough to go see Daniel with Mary Roach in San Francisco. Just so happened to be on my birthday. He did a brief presentation on the origin and research involved for this book and it was just as fascinating as the book itself and gave me an even deeper appreciation for the brilliance that is Whalefall.

Kraus. Killin’ it. Go buy and read it.

“Being born is scary no matter how many times you do it.”

wow.

just, wow!!! intense, emotional... I loved this so so much. I want more about the aftermath, but at the same time its a perfect ending.

Who knew catharsis could be this fascinating?

First of all, excellent narration and performance.

Whalefall is a hard science lite horror journey about catharsis and and grief and both are done exceptionally well.

To avoid spoilers, I don’t want to say too much more but it’s a gripping and compelling journey you won’t want to stop playing once you start.

Well-Researched

I'm impressed with Dan's ability to translate his research of whales and scuba diving into a fictional novel.

Great holistic story

The beginning of the book was hard to trudge through. But from about the 2/3rd way to the end was fantastic!

...OH! It's Trauma!!

I really liked how extremely well researched the whale anatomy and facts of diving and physics of pressure were. That part was deeply impressive. I also thought it was an interesting nuance to have a hardcore environmentalist be the toxic, unavailable father instead him being ANOTHER fisherman stereotype.

Beyond that almost any time the story delves into Jay's past my brain kind of shuts off until we're back in the guts. I get that is some people's bag, and some people will say "Wow, I relate so much!" I'm good, thanks. But, our narrator did an excellent job vocalizing each character, and the "BOHM BOHM!!" of the Whale Heart was very pronounced.

Oh, and overall making a sort of Cosmic Horror level experience of being eaten alive by a being you can scarcely comprehend the scope of was very well done here. I just didn't care for it obviously trying to shove it through as a metaphor for overcoming trauma. Felt very forced that the only reason this kid got swallowed was so it could function as a metaphor. If it was more subtle, maybe it would have worked better, but it was very forced.

also, Beaky MVP.