Binding: Paperback
Date Published: 08 Oct 2026
FROM THE PULITZER PRIZE WINNER, READ THE STORY THAT INSPIRED THE BLOCKBUSTER FILM, OUT THIS OCTOBER!
'Astoundingly great. Whalefall is, quite simply, a beautiful novel-a must-read story' - GILLIAN FLYNN
'A crazy, and crazily enjoyable, beat-the-clock adventure story' - NEW YORK TIMES
'Fantastically gripping . . . Smart, surreal, and powerfully humane' - OWEN KING
'There is nothing else quite like Whalefall' - NEW SCIENTIST
The Martian meets 127 Hours in this powerfully humane thriller about a scuba diver who's been swallowed by an eighty-foot, sixty-ton sperm whale and has only one hour to escape before his oxygen runs out.
Jay Gardiner has given himself a fool's errand: to find the remains of his deceased father in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. He knows it's a long shot, but Jay feels it's the only way for him to lift the weight of guilt he has carried since his dad's death the previous year.
The dive begins well enough, but the sudden appearance of a giant squid puts Jay in very real jeopardy, made infinitely worse by the arrival of a sperm whale looking to feed. Suddenly, Jay is caught in the squid's tentacles and drawn into the whale's mouth where he is pulled into the first of its four stomachs. He quickly realizes he has only one hour before his oxygen tanks run out - one hour to defeat his demons and escape the belly of a whale.
Suspenseful and cinematic, Whalefall is an 'astoundingly great' (Gillian Flynn, New York Times bestselling author) thriller about a young man who has given up on life, only to find a reason to live in the most dangerous and unlikely of places.