WHALE FALL

A heartrending tale that shines a light on the brutal realities of whale captivity.

Whale, a young orca who dreams of becoming her pod’s matriarch and storyteller, is violently captured by humans. While her first caretaker, a Two-Legs whom she dubs “Red” for his “mop of red fur,” shows her small kindnesses, her hopes of returning to the ocean are crushed as she’s moved from aquarium to aquarium. She struggles with harsh environments, where the air has “no taste of the sea…no surf, no salt water, no kelp, no algae.” Forced to perform tricks for food, Whale struggles to understand the songs of some of the other captive whales. Although Gaia, a kindly older whale, looks out for her, others attack. After years in captivity, she has a calf, but the Two-Legs take her daughter away. The monotony of confinement is relentless. Whale tries to bond with fellow captives, sharing memories of the ocean, but many were born in captivity or no longer remember the wild. Recalling Grandmother’s stories of whale mythology offers Whale brief comfort but joy fades as her health declines. She struggles to maintain faith in the eventual promise of going to Whale Fall—where you “give your body back to the ocean.” Rourke’s passionate, unflinching debut seamlessly weaves fascinating information about orca biology into the narrative. Her author’s note describes real cases of killer whales, many still living in marine parks, whose suffering inspired this story.

Somber and uncompromising; a stark call to end animal cruelty.