Whale: Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize

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Yet she is no Ahab; it is not a single whale to which she is drawn, but the collective, and in the end the whales act as stepping-stones, bridges to human relationships on her journey, notably with other women and mothers. Pods, human as well as cetacean, come up repeatedly in Doreen Cunningham’s debut, Soundings, a striking, brave and often lyrical book that defies easy interpretation.

Books about Whales, Dolphins or other Marine Mammals - Goodreads Books about Whales, Dolphins or other Marine Mammals - Goodreads

Doreen Cunningham and her son travel up the Pacific coast following grey whales as they migrate from Baja California.What could she hope to gain by taking her two-year-old on such a long journey, one that might catapult her further into debt and distance her from family? An engineering graduate, Cunningham had a busy career as a London-based climate journalist, covering stories all around the world, including in Alaska (her time with Iñupiat whalers provides a key thread in the book as well as a wealth of fascinating ethnographic material). Whale mothers and their calves, meanwhile, surface and dive alongside the pair, and Cunningham movingly describes their bonds of cooperation, which find pointed echoes and contrasts in her travelling companions and personal relationships.

Whale by Tom Mustill | Waterstones How to Speak Whale by Tom Mustill | Waterstones

What at first seems a reckless, near-mystical pursuit of an imagined being leads her to find a human pod of her own.

Depleted, insolvent and isolated, she takes refuge in a hostel for single mothers and it is here that she conceives her plan to follow whales with her young son. While mother whales dived deep to hunt for squid, others assumed the role of “allomothers”, caring for the calf at the water’s surface (the popular press referred to these whales as “babysitters”). At times the narrator seems fixated on obtaining a transformative encounter with the whale, almost betraying a desire to jump the species barrier.