Elizabeth O'Connor's spare and bracing debut novel Whale Fall opens with an isolated Welsh island on a precipice. It is September 1938, and the community's fishermen have begun encountering the Royal Navy out at sea.
When a whale washes ashore, the minister, who shares developments from out-of-date newspapers at mass, suggests that submarine radar could explain its fate. To the elders, the beached whale seems to be an omen, though they're not sure if it portends good or bad. Either way, "it felt as though something was circling us, waiting to land against the shore," O'Connor writes.
