Whale Fall: The heartbreaking historical fiction and BBC Between The Covers book club pick
Apr 2024 · Pan Macmillan
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About this ebook
‘I didn't want it to end’ - Maggie O'Farrell, author of Hamnet
‘Gorgeous and heartbreaking . . . I wept’ - Yael van der Wouden, author of The Safekeep
A BBC Between the Covers Book Club Pick
An Observer Best Debut of the Year
Shortlisted for the Betty Trask Award
It is 1938 and on an island off the coast of Wales, Manod is trying to imagine her future. Her choices are stark: she must either stay and look after her father's house, in the wild landscape that drove her mother to madness, or marry and leave.
And so, when two English anthropologists arrive on the island, Manod senses the possibility of a thrilling new life. But, as she becomes entangled in their work, and their strange relationship, the outside world she had yearned for appears a much darker place than she could ever have imagined.
Elizabeth O’Connor’s beautiful, devastating debut Whale Fall tells a story of longing and betrayal set against the backdrop of a world on the brink of war.
‘The quiet cadences of Whale Fall contain a deep melody of loss held and let go. It is a gentle, tough story about profound change’ - Anne Enright, author of The Wren, The Wren
‘Powerful . . . written with a calm, luminous precision’ - Colm Tóibín, author of Long Island
‘Gorgeous and heartbreaking . . . I wept’ - Yael van der Wouden, author of The Safekeep
A BBC Between the Covers Book Club Pick
An Observer Best Debut of the Year
Shortlisted for the Betty Trask Award
It is 1938 and on an island off the coast of Wales, Manod is trying to imagine her future. Her choices are stark: she must either stay and look after her father's house, in the wild landscape that drove her mother to madness, or marry and leave.
And so, when two English anthropologists arrive on the island, Manod senses the possibility of a thrilling new life. But, as she becomes entangled in their work, and their strange relationship, the outside world she had yearned for appears a much darker place than she could ever have imagined.
Elizabeth O’Connor’s beautiful, devastating debut Whale Fall tells a story of longing and betrayal set against the backdrop of a world on the brink of war.
‘The quiet cadences of Whale Fall contain a deep melody of loss held and let go. It is a gentle, tough story about profound change’ - Anne Enright, author of The Wren, The Wren
‘Powerful . . . written with a calm, luminous precision’ - Colm Tóibín, author of Long Island
‘I didn't want it to end’ - Maggie O'Farrell, author of Hamnet
‘Gorgeous and heartbreaking . . . I wept’ - Yael van der Wouden, author of The Safekeep
A BBC Between the Covers Book Club Pick
An Observer Best Debut of the Year
Shortlisted for the Betty Trask Award
It is 1938 and on an island of...
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About the author
Elizabeth O’Connor lives in Birmingham. Her short stories have appeared in The White Review and Granta, and she was the winner of The White Review Short Story Prize in 2020. She has a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Birmingham, on the modernist writer H.D. and her writing of coastal landscapes. Whale Fall is her first novel.
Elizabeth O’Connor lives in Birmingham. Her short stories have appeared in The White Review and Granta, and she was the winner of The White Review Short Story Prize in 2020. She has a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Birmingham, on the modernist writer H.D. and her writing of co...
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