Novel set in KENT, LONDON, PARIS
A coming of age novel set in NORFOLK
28th November 2022
The Whale Tattoo by Jon Ransom, a coming of age novel set in NORFOLK.
When young and troubled Joe Gunner returns to the family home after a two-year absence, he’s flooded with misgivings and impressions he struggles to make sense of. He’s haunted by memories of a dead whale washed up on the shore, and a river that talks to him, taunting him, judging him harshly. Joe’s life is a mess and he is hardly equipped to cope. Death stalks him. He misses his mother who died some time before, despises his father who is in and out of hospital, and then there’s his sister Birdee who has opinions on everything Joe does, and has taken off with the Soldier. Not to mention Joe’s lover Tim Fysh, and his pregnant wife Dora. Why Joe has returned is a mystery, except that he has come back to deal with his past.
What opens as fragmented prose giving the reader half-impressions and a sense of not quite seeing, not quite grasping anything at all other than the bleak, grey landscape, and snatches of the people in it, gives way to an inner landscape that is equally bleak, equally shifting just like the mud flats in the tides, unpredictable, confusing, hard to make sense of. Joe is not a loveable protagonist but you soon learn he is a boy that just wants to be loved, wants to find his place in the only world he knows.
The Whale Tattoo is mainly a story of grief and coming to terms with sexuality against a backdrop of homophobia in a working-class backwater steeped in the tradition of fishing the mud flats. It’s a profoundly introspective novel that yields some surprising twists towards the end. Exquisitely crafted in sparse prose that mirrors Joe’s uncomplicated, unsophisticated way of knowing himself and the world around him, The Whale Tattoo is a mesmerising read.
The gritty uncompromising style, the disorienting flow of the narrative, and the earthy and raw attention paid to Joe’s sexuality might not appeal to everyone, but I highly recommend persevering until a third of the way in when the story starts to gather pace. There are some realistic and microscopic descriptions of destitution and poverty here, too, of lives lived away from wealth, away from grand aspirations, away from fast cars and mortgages and holidays in far-flung places. And above all, there is the constant and captivating portrayal of the shifting waters of the Wash.
This is Ransom’s debut, and I would not be at all surprised to learn it has picked up a literary prize or two. It certainly deserves any accolades it receives.
Guest Review by Isobel Blackthorn
Isobel is a prolific novelist. She writes both contemporary/literary, thrillers and dark fiction. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter and via her website.
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