
Whale Fall
A Novel
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About this listen
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW NOTABLE BOOK • A stunning debut from an award-winning writer, about loss, isolation, folklore, and the joy and dissonance of finding oneself by exploring life outside one’s community
“Both blunt and exquisite . . . O’Connor’s excellent debut . . . is an example of precisely observed writing that makes a character’s specific existence glimmer with verisimilitude.”—Maggie Shipstead, New York Times Book Review
"Whale Fall is a powerful novel, written with a calm, luminous precision, each feeling rendered with chiseled care, the drama of island life unfolding with piercing emotional accuracy."—Colm Toibin, New York Times bestselling author of Long Island
In 1938, a dead whale washes up on the shores of remote Welsh island. For Manod, who has spent her whole life on the island, it feels like both a portent of doom and a symbol of what may lie beyond the island's shores. A young woman living with her father and her sister (to whom she has reluctantly but devotedly become a mother following the death of their own mother years prior), Manod can't shake her welling desire to explore life beyond the beautiful yet blisteringly harsh islands that her hardscrabble family has called home for generations.
The arrival of two English ethnographers who hope to study the island culture, then, feels like a boon to her—both a glimpse of life outside her community and a means of escape. The longer the ethnographers stay, the more she feels herself pulled towards them, reckoning with a sensual awakening inside herself, despite her misgivings that her community is being misconstrued and exoticized.
With shimmering prose tempered by sharp wit, Whale Fall tells the story of what happens when one person's ambitions threaten the fabric of a community, and what can happen when they are realized. O'Connor paints a portrait of a community and a woman on the precipice, forced to confront an outside world that seems to be closing in on them.
©2024 Elizabeth O'Connor (P)2024 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
A New York Times Notable Book of 2024
Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker and NPR
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
“Both blunt and exquisite . . . O’Connor’s excellent debut . . . is an example of precisely observed writing that makes a character’s specific existence glimmer with verisimilitude.”—Maggie Shipstead, New York Times Book Review
"Spare and bracing...O'Connor constructs her setting with precise, atmospheric detail that captures a world slowly being eroded....It all makes for a haunting and lucid exploration of the moments leading up to immense change."—NPR
“In Whale Fall, the landscape and its people speak together…By rejecting nostalgia but still foregrounding landscape, Whale Fall makes space for the more intimate, surreal ways that culture can relate to nature.”—The Nation
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Story
In the future, a Black girl known only as Inmate Eleven is kept confined—to be used as a biological match for the president's son, should he fall ill. She is called a Blue—the color of sadness. She lives in a small-small room with her dog, who is going wolf more often—he’s pacing and imagining he’s free. Inmate Eleven wants to go wolf too—she wants to know why she feels so Blue and what is beyond her small-small room.
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Deep Story Telling
- By Adele on 02-07-24
By: Amber McBride
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The Good Wife of Bath
- A Novel
- By: Karen Brooks
- Narrated by: Fran Burgoyne
- Length: 19 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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England, 1364: When married off at aged twelve to an elderly farmer, brazen redheaded Eleanor quickly realizes it won’t matter what she says or does, God is not on her side—or any poor woman’s for that matter. But then again, Eleanor was born under the joint signs of Venus and Mars, making her both a lover and a fighter.
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Interesting, funny and thought provoking
- By Dawn Umstot on 07-01-22
By: Karen Brooks
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Devil Is Fine
- A Novel
- By: John Vercher
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Reeling from the sudden death of his teenage son, our narrator receives a letter from an attorney: he has just inherited a plot of land from his estranged grandfather. He travels to a beach town several hours south of his home with the intention of immediately selling the land. But upon inspection, what lies beneath the dirt is much more than he can process in the throes of grief. As a biracial Black man struggling with the many facets of his identity, he’s now the owner of a former plantation passed down by the men on his white mother’s side of the family.
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Mesmerizing
- By Gina Middleton on 06-24-24
By: John Vercher
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The Night Always Comes
- A Novel
- By: Willy Vlautin
- Narrated by: Christine Lakin
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Barely 30, Lynette is exhausted. Saddled with bad credit and juggling multiple jobs, some illegally, she’s been diligently working to buy the house she lives in with her mother and developmentally disabled brother Kenny. Portland’s housing prices have nearly quadrupled in 15 years, and the owner is giving them a good deal. Lynette knows it’s their last best chance to own their own home - and obtain the security they’ve never had. While she has enough for the down payment, she needs her mother to cover the rest of the asking price.
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Wow, a knockout!
- By Alma on 04-24-21
By: Willy Vlautin
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Health and Safety
- A Breakdown
- By: Emily Witt
- Narrated by: Emily Witt
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
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In the summer of 2016, a divisive presidential election was underway, and a new breed of right-wing rage was on the rise. Emily Witt, who would soon publish her first book on sex in the digital age, had recently quit antidepressants for a more expansive world of psychedelic experimentation. From her apartment in Brooklyn, she began to catch glimpses of the clandestine nightlife scene thrumming around her.
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Bored voice
- By Amazon Customer on 12-20-24
By: Emily Witt
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Vantage Point
- A Novel
- By: Sara Sligar
- Narrated by: Adam Ewer, Helen Laser, Jess Nahikian
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Clara and her brother, Teddy, grew up on a small island in Maine in the shadow of their parents’ tragic deaths, haunted by rumors and paparazzi. Fourteen years later, they’ve mostly put their turbulent past to rest. Teddy has married Clara’s best friend, Jess, and the three of them have moved back home to take over the sprawling, remote family mansion known as Vantage Point. Then Teddy decides to run for the Senate—an unnerving prospect made much worse when intimate videos of Clara are leaked online.
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What a disappointment .
- By scumble on 02-10-25
By: Sara Sligar
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Brooklyn
- A Novel
- By: Colm Toibin
- Narrated by: Saoirse Ronan
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
“One of the most unforgettable characters in contemporary literature” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), Eilis Lacey has come of age in small-town Ireland in the hard years following World War Two. When an Irish priest from Brooklyn offers to sponsor Eilis in America, she decides she must go, leaving her fragile mother and her charismatic sister behind. Eilis finds work in a department store on Fulton Street, and when she least expects it, finds love. Tony, who loves the Dodgers and his big Italian family, slowly wins her over with patient charm.
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Emotional inner struggles, divided by two worlds ,
- By Marijana Dinic on 06-22-25
By: Colm Toibin
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Star 111
- By: Lutz Seiler, Tess Lewis - translator
- Narrated by: BJ Harrison
- Length: 16 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
November 1989. The Berlin Wall has just fallen when the East German couple Inge and Walter, following a secret dream they've harbored all their lives, set out for life in the West. Carl, their son, refuses to keep watch over the family home and instead heads to Berlin, where he lives in his father's car until he is taken in by a group of squatters. Led by a shepherd and his goat, the pack of squatters sets up the first alternative bar in East Berlin and are involved in guerrilla occupations.
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About 30% incomprehensible
- By Eric on 01-27-25
By: Lutz Seiler, and others
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The Manor House
- A Novel
- By: Gilly Macmillan
- Narrated by: Ethan Reid, Nathalie Buscombe, Clare Corbett, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Childhood sweethearts Nicole and Tom are a normal, loving couple—until a massive lottery win changes their lives overnight. Soon they’ve moved into a custom-built state-of-the-art Glass Barn on the stunning grounds of Lancaut Manor in Gloucestershire. They have fancy cars, expensive hobbies, and an exclusive lifestyle they never could have imagined. But this dream world quickly turns into a nightmare when Tom is found dead in the swimming pool. Was Tom’s death a tragic accident, or was it something worse?
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Soooo Good!
- By Lee on 12-14-23
By: Gilly Macmillan
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Touched by the Sun
- My Friendship with Jackie
- By: Carly Simon
- Narrated by: Elizabeth McGovern
- Length: 5 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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A chance encounter at a summer party on Martha’s Vineyard blossomed into an improbable but enduring friendship. Carly Simon and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis made an unlikely pair - Carly, a free and artistic spirit still reeling from her recent divorce, searching for meaning, new love, and an anchor; and Jackie, one of the most celebrated, meticulous, unknowable women in American history. Nonetheless, over the next decade their lives merged in inextricable and complex ways, and they forged a connection deeper than either could ever have foreseen.
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Self absorbed!
- By Stephanie l. on 03-19-20
By: Carly Simon
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Homebodies
- A Novel
- By: Tembe Denton-Hurst
- Narrated by: Marcella Cox
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Mickey Hayward dreams of writing stories that matter, but, for now, her days are filled with listicles about lip gloss and click-bait articles about celebrity haircare. Still, the job is flashy and her girlfriend is steady and supportive. The path may be long, but Mickey’s well on her way, and it’s far from the messy life she left behind in Maryland. Everything finally seems to be falling into place—until she finds out she’s being replaced.
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I wanted more
- By Reya on 03-16-25
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Antarctica
- Stories
- By: Claire Keegan
- Narrated by: Sheena May, Aoife McMahon, Aidan Quinn, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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From the titular story about a married woman who takes a trip to the city with a single purpose in mind—to sleep with another man—Antarctica draws listeners into a world of obsession, betrayal, and fragile relationships. Cordelia wakes on the last day of the twentieth century and sets off to keep a date nine years in the waiting. Frank Corso mourns the curious disappearance of his daughter and tries desperately to reach out to his shattered wife. Throughout the collection, Keegan's characters inhabit a world where dreams, memory, and chance can have crippling consequences.
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Incredible, but out of order and missing one story
- By Jason on 07-26-23
By: Claire Keegan
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Held
- A Novel
- By: Anne Michaels
- Narrated by: Anne Michaels
- Length: 4 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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1917. On a battlefield near the River Escaut, John lies in the aftermath of a blast, unable to move or feel his legs. Struggling to focus his thoughts, he is lost to memory as the snow falls—a chance encounter in a pub by a railway, a hot bath with his lover on a winter night. 1920. John has returned from war to North Yorkshire, near a different river. He is alive but still not whole. Reunited with Helena, an artist, he reopens his photography business and tries to keep on living. But the past erupts insistently into the present, as ghosts begin to surface in his pictures
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Would give six stars if possible
- By love it on 08-31-24
By: Anne Michaels
Loss of innocence and disillusionment beautifully told
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beautiful
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The writing was beautiful, the characters richly described, a very good listrn.
The rhythm of the language matched the storytelling.
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Beautiful, Dreary, and Real
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Unusual, powerful story
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Compelling story, superbly performed
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Poetic and Musical
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Outstanding-- lyrical and evocative
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Fabulous narration!
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Excellent book for audible
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