Whalefall
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Kirby Heyborne
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By:
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Daniel Kraus
About this listen
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.
Critic reviews
"Narrator Kirby Heyborne embodies the gruesomeness and terror and beauty in Daniel Kraus’s story. Listeners will feel its intensity in the pit of their stomachs. Teenage scuba diver Jay Gardiner is consumed by guilt as he seeks to find the remains of his father, who died by suicide, in the Pacific Ocean. As Jay searches the ocean’s depths, he is swallowed by a sperm whale. As the story switches between key moments in Jay’s past and the rapidly decreasing air in his tanks, listeners will feel like they themselves are gasping for air. Heyborne’s performance robustly expands Kraus’s tale, and it is divine."
Interesting and well worth a listen
Definitely Different
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surprisingly emotional
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Daddy issues? This one's for you
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It reads like most classic books: slow but deliberate, often frustrating but one that'll stick with you a long time. One where you go through some hardship but the reward at the end is more than worth it. If we had to read this instead of Moby Dick in school, it would have been so amazing!
It is a monumental book, the process of being swallowed by a whale and the details of what happens after is beyond fascinating. This process is greatly detailed with amazing imagination.
The second running theme is the family dynamics that eventually lead to this doomed dive, and while it's very interesting, it does run on and dominates the story. I wish it didn't, but it is interesting enough to keep you going.
The writing is beautifully poetic, and it ends on a cathartic note. I'm so glad i got to listen to this book, the narrator was phenomenal and made the whole experience a memorable one.
a modern classic
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Really just… no
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