A really good read - The Whale at the End of the World
A story that begins with a beautiful, naked young man washed up on the beach of a tiny, ridiculously remote Cornish village and the sighting of a majestically mysterious whale lurking in the bay, is almost certain to grab your attention.
A book that started its life with an entirely different title when it was first published in 2015, and uncannily envisions a global pandemic and how the crisis affects the wider world, but specifically one small tightly-knit, cut-off community, is almost certain to pique your interest.
What you might not expect is that a tale with such a traumatic start and apocalyptic theme would be such a joyously uplifting, cheeringly hopeful and deeply warm-hearted read.
Originally published with the rather less enticing title of ‘Not Forgetting The Whale’, the story of how and why City analyst, Joe Haak, comes to be deposited, minus his clothes, on the shore of St Piran, a Cornish village that is “no more’n a tiny pimple on the tippety-tippetiest-tip of the teeniest tiniest toe” of the UK mainland, is interwoven into the narrative about the deadly pandemic that he has forecast, and how it, and he, affects the lives of the village’s inhabitants.
Author John Ironmonger’s story-telling style perfectly captures the somewhat other-worldly nature of the Cornish landscape and people, and the contrasting, relentlessly high octane environment of the City bank where Joe has created a computer programme that is capable of collating and analysing thousands of pieces of news and information in order to identify ailing shares, and which he believes has brought about a catastrophic banking collapse.
More than once, the distantly-sighted whale will prove to play a pivotal part in what happens to Joe and the sometimes cliche - but always delightfully so - cast of inhabitants of St Prian, who include a curmudgeonly retired doctor, a flamboyant romantic novelist, a severe vicar and his flirty wife and a dedicated nurse with a beautiful singing voice, when the deadly virus that Joe’s computer programme has forseen, spreads its tentacles across the world.
As the interconnected supply chains on which the world relies, break down, and in spite of the predictions that social and moral disintegration and chaos will inevitably follow, the villagers find ever more inventive ways to band together and support each other in order to survive.
The Whale at the End of the World is, above all, a story about the power of community and the inherent goodness and generosity of spirit in us all. It’s also a story about the search for a place to call home and how hope can be found, even in the darkest of times.
In case you couldn’t tell, I loved it.
There are lots more great read recommendations in the Try Something New section of the site.
