The Whale Tattoo

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

When a giant sperm whale washes up on the local beach and tells Joe Gunner that death will follow him wherever he goes. Joe knows that the place he needs to go is back home. Having stormed out two years ago, it won't be easy, nor will returning to the river alongside the house where words ripple beneath the muddy black water washing up all sorts of memories and disturbing prophesies.Joe turns to his sister, Birdee, the only person who has ever listened. But she can't help him, she drowned two years earlier, even though he still talks to her as if she never went away. Then there's Tim Fysh. A local fisherman and longtime lover. But reviving their bond is not without trouble. He tells himself that the whale's prediction is wrong. But the river is relentless. By night it makes him piss the bed, by day it is there yipping from the bank, filling his head with rubbish, warning him to give Fysh up. Joe gets close to beating back the noise, but death still echoes. Then as the sea settles and Joe learns the truth about the river and finds that we all have the capability to hate, and that we can all make the choice not to. Ransom's fractured, distinctive prose highlights the beauty and brutality of his story, his extraordinarily vivid sense of place saturates the reader with the wet of the river, and the salty tang of the heaving sea.

Reviews

'This eloquent heart-felt debut pulls the reader right beside him and announces Ransom as a writer of real talent.' Guardian. 'A stunning achievement - one of the most impressive and assured debuts I've ever read.' Matt Cain. 'If you only read one debut novel this year make it this one' Attitude Magazine. 'Raw, uncompromising, and authentic, a remarkable debut from an astonishingly gifted writer' Golnoosh Nour. 'It's a fine work of queer literature'. Damian Barr's Literary Salon. 'A bold, brilliant and beautiful debut'. Suzannah Dunn. 'This guy is an incredible new talent. A short book that punches well above its weight: explicit, brutal and moving'. Isabel Costello. 'Seldom, outside the realms of gay royalty like Alan Hollinghurst, have I read a novel about gay people so well written. I can't recall the last time I read a novel with such a sense of place. This is a story that lives on long after the last full stop. And deserves to be read'. Charles Coussens

Author Bio

Jon Ransom was a mentee on the 2019 Escalator Talent Development scheme at the National Centre for Writing. He developed The Whale Tattoo at Arvon's Fiction: Work in Progress retreat, after winning a place on the 2018 Arts Council England TLC Free Read Scheme. Ransom's short stories have appeared in SAND Journal, Foglifter Press and FIVE:2:ONE, amongst others.