Despite the extensive research and scientific accuracy of his drafting process, Daniel Kraus (The Shape of Water) isn't focused on believability in Whalefall, an emotionally complex thriller that contemplates grief, existence, and family--from within the literal belly of a whale. A year after his father Mitt's death, 17-year-old Jay Gardiner combs the ocean floor for lingering bones to comfort his mother and sisters as well as prove he isn't a failure. Diving off the most dangerous beach in California, he plunges over an ocean ledge and encounters a giant squid and its sole natural predator: an ancient sperm whale. The whale ingests the squid and--through tangled limbs and tentacles--Jay himself.
Kraus, mixing flashbacks with an ever-ticking air pressure gauge on his scuba tank, freshly renders a combative father-son dynamic ("The swim will hurt but not as much as staying"), placing grief in conversation with survival as Jay races to escape the churning viscera of whale innards. Does Jay owe his life to the pain Mitt wrought, or was there another way? Is what he finds inside the whale his father, or an echo? Does it matter? The novel is less concerned with forgiveness than the equilibrium brought by acceptance, and its upsettingly detailed, incredible setting makes Jay's anguish only hit harder. ("Jay Gardiner, a single star, flaming, falling. But hadn't the sights been spectacular? Didn't the hurts hurt bad? Wasn't the love, the times he got it, the loveliest?") Kraus deftly explores life's fragility and the ways families fail and save each other--which are as inevitable as the ocean itself. --Kristen Coates, editor and freelance reviewer