Sparse, beautifully written novel of a young adult’s first real contact with the outside world. Manod lives with her sister and father on a remote Welsh island. Shortly before WWII starts, she acts as translator for two British ethnographers who are writing a book about the island and its people. Through them, she learns about love, exploitation and false promises. While the novel is indeed a dark tale, the reader is left with a sense that Manod will escape her sheltered world.

Whimsical. Magnificent. “Whale Fall” by Elizabeth O’Connor looks at how far one will go for the truth. The book follows Manod, a woman of marriage age torn between whether to start a new life on mainland or stay on the island to care for her sister.

When a whale washes up on the shore, Manod’s Welsh Island community debates if it’s a good or bad sign. Told through transcriptions, folktales, observations and first person narration, the novel follows the whales slow decomposition and the arrival of British researchers.

With a population of 47, the island is a place untouched by the cities and 20 years behind in fashion. They get news snippets from mainland visitors who debate whether war will erupt. With no knowledge of how to swim, the people are quite literally trapped on the island.

Manod reminded me of a cross between Anne of Green Gables and Moana. Not one to meet many visitors, she soon gets taken advantage by the researchers and tries to impress them. I loved how the book flowed and how the author would take a moment from the present tense to spark a memory and flash back. Will love to see more from this author!

Thanks to @knopfdoubledaybooks and @pantheonbooks for the #advancedreaderscopy on @NetGalley! Such a stunning cover! Be sure to check this novel, which is out now.

Whale Fall is a stunning, debut novel that takes place on a fictional, remote island off the coast of Wales. Although it is 1938, the population on the island, which numbers only fifteen men, twenty women, and twelve children, is at least ten years behind the mainland in terms of fashion, politics, and ideologies. When a dead whale washes up on the shore, the islanders take it as a portend of doom, and following not far behind the whale is the entrance of two English ethnographers who seek to study the island’s culture, collecting its customs, tales, games, and geography for university study. A bright, eighteen-year-old island girl named Manod, who feels caught between the pressure to marry and leave the island and the need to stay on the island and care for her younger sister in the wake of their mother’s death, becomes enamored with the English researchers. They hire Manod to help them translate stories and communicate with the Welsh speaking islanders.

The story of Manod’s experience is punctuated with notes from the ethnographers and recreations of the tales they collect in their research. One tale features a woman with three daughters so beautiful the ocean sweeps them away in a jealous rage, returning them only as gulls flying in the wind. There are several variants of this tale, one which returns the daughters as whales, along with selkie stories and references to the Mari Lwyd. Although the novel celebrates folklore and those who are drawn toward it, Whale Fall also provides a poignant commentary on the exoticization of isolated communities and the impossibility of maintaining authenticity when studying other cultures through the lenses of our own. The researchers and the islanders exact irreversible changes upon each other that affect both Manod’s individual coming-of-age and the community’s sense of cultural identity.

At the background of Manod’s human narrative is the ever-present decay of the whale just off the coast of the island waters. The title of O’Connor’s novel forces readers to think of the researchers’ interest in the dwindling population on the island in relation to a natural “whale fall,” a term used to describe the slow plunging of a whale carcass to the bottom of the ocean. Although the death of a whale is a tragic loss, its decomposition supports various communities of marine life who scavenge on the flesh for months, and the researchers in the novel, who live on the stories of a disappearing culture, are presented as scavengers who take what is not theirs and use it for their own intellectual benefit. In direct contrast to the rotting whale is Manod’s younger sister, a wild child who speaks only in her native tongue and collects the bones of dead animals, storing them in jars until she finds the scraps she needs to recreate whole skeletons from the pieces. The tide-like push and pull between decomposition and reanimation, between the human world and the natural world, between the island and the mainland, between preserving stories and losing them, between death and life, pulses beneath the narrative of one girl at the crossroads of her obligations and her desires. Heartbreaking and harrowing, Whale Fall is a must read for fans of folklore and all those who enjoy contemplating our power and powerlessness as tellers of tales. I loved it!

Thank you to NetGalley for a free copy of the book in exchange for a fair review.

Set on a fictional Welsh island in 1938, Whale Fall is a coming of age tale which centers in on a recently graduated 18 year old Manod, daughter of a lobster fisherman and older sister to Llinos.

We learn early that Manod is bright, yet limited by the time period, gender norms, and her community traditions. Manod is best in class and can speak English, yet instead of being encouraged to pursue an education on the mainland is asked by an instructor to help another classmate with his entrance essay. She is approached by another boy in town with hopes for marriage but routinely declines until he, too, leaves for the mainland to find work and a wife. Despite her attachment to her small community, Manod seems to want something more. What exactly that is—she isn’t sure yet.

When a whale washes up on the island, it sparks interest, fear, and folklore from the community. It also brings two outsiders intent on studying a vanishing culture: anthropologists Edward and Joan. With Manod’s help translating Welsh into English, instructing locals for photographs, and explaining cultural significance, Edward and Joan piece together local legends, songs, and photographs for their book. At first, Manod is dazzled by their interest and praise, feels encouraged to pursue education on the mainland and can envision a different kind of future for herself. However, during their short time there becomes disillusioned by the perceptions of her community and inaccurate accounts of their way of life.

This book touched on some interesting social themes prevalent today as well which I thought about the most after finishing the book, such as gentrification, cultural tourism, and often the inaccuracy and exploitation of telling other peoples stories for them.

This story is written beautifully, and I’d recommend it to anyone who enjoys books that feel immersive and slow, with settings deep in nature and with wildlife.

Fans of both Audrey McGee’s #TheColony and Carys Davis’ #Clear should feel right at home in Elizabeth O’Connors debut novel, #Whalefall O’Connor was one of Granta’s 10 Best Novelists for 2024 and in the article talks about how she wrote the book while working in a cafe, literally scribbling thoughts and sentences down on receipts and food order slips.

The book is set in 1938 on a remote Welsh Island where a dead whale washes up at the start of the novel. The island is inhabited by a small community including our protagonist Manod, a young woman living with her father and younger sister, her mother having passed away years earlier.

When two English ethnographers (a person who studies and describes a particular society or group. I didn’t know either!) arrive on the island Manon gets employed by them to help with a variety of tasks, and being increasingly drawn to each of them in different ways.

I listened to this on a long drive from the desert, and McGee’s lyrical writing is truly beautiful, and I have to add that as an audio choice it’s truly fantastic, read by a group of narrators who bring these characters, especially Manod to life. McGee captures the ache of youthful yearning married with the hope of escaping to a world full of promise and possibility. Thanks to @prhaudio and @pantheon for the ALC and ARC.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of Whale Fall by Elizabeth O'Connor.

I had the pleasure of listening to this which I appreciated because I am very unfamiliar with the Welsh language, so I loved hearing the names pronounced appropriately. I would have butchered them in my head.

I you read this for the writing, it's a five star read, hands down. O'Connor sets an atmosphere that I would happily bathe in. Her words practically sparkle with poetry. She is a wordsmith no doubt.

However, I struggled with the actual story. I had to start over more than once and focus hard on what was happening, and what actually happened was...not much? I just didn't feel that moved by it like a lot of other reviewers did, so perhaps this book just wasn't for me.

From the moment I first heard of WHALE FALL, when I knew little more than it was set on a small island and had a gorgeous cover, it was a book I needed. I’m thrilled to say that my most anticipated read of the year did NOT disappoint!

It’s 1938, rumors of a world war have reached an isolated island off the coast of Wales. The community’s numbers are already slim and decreasing each year as the younger generations leave for the mainland. With the death of her mother, 18-year-old Manod has found herself now in the position of caring for her younger sister and tending to the house while her father fishes with the other men for lobster.

Everything changes when a whale’s body washes ashore. Shortly after two ethnographers arrive from Oxford, eager to study the island’s culture — but it’s their own culture, the knowledge of an entire world out there, that captivates Manod.

WHALE FALL is slim, barely 200 pages, but don’t let its lack of size fool you into thinking it lacks substance. This quiet novel is full of emotion: loss, hope, resignation, rage, wonder; full of lush imagery and a sense of place.

I know readers can be quick to close a book after the metaphorical curtain falls, but I absolutely recommend sticking around for the author’s note — she goes into detail about the real islands that inspired this book.

2024 has been a year of quiet novels for me and WHALE FALL is among the best.

In the year of 1938 on a small island off the coast of Wales resides a young woman of eighteen named Manod,who struggles between her feelings of leaving her family and isolated existence on the island to finding a better life for herself and to see what the world is really like and not just from just from things she has read.about the outside world.

Never any excitement on the island until the day a whale washes up on their beach Day in day out many of the islanders visit the whale especially the children who talk to him or play games around it. Soon after more excitement comes about when two fancy people come to the island to study the inhabitants and their way of life. Since all the residents speak mainly Welsh, the couple hires Manod to be an interpreter for them as they visit the people in their homes and work. Manod is attracted to the couple's worldliness and mannerisms as well as they style of dress. Soon Manod is seduced by the couple's glamor and stories of their travels as they encourage her that she is capable of enhancing her own life if she would leave her island. As time goes on Manod begins to see and understand that the couple may have had ulterior motives that could harm the naive, hardworking community in many ways that none of them could have foreseen except for the foreigners who only had their own interests at heart.


This was a lovely although bleak story told through Manod's eyes. Strictly a fishing island, the men and women work from sunrise to sunset from the men out in their fishing boats to the children collecting mollusks and clams while the women clean all the aquatic life to prepare to be sold to the mainland. The author Elizabeth O'Connor does a wonderful job in her atmospheric writing of the sights, sounds, smells and in showing the isolated and droll life that the islanders face and accept every day of their lives. The population decreases every year due to many of the teenagers who leave for the mainland after they graduate school from their small little classroom. I enjoyed the character of Manod very much but I wish she was a little less robotic with her thoughts and actions.

The parts I did not like were the paragraphs were not separated and I would find times and days confusing since some thoughts seemed incomplete and then I would be in a different place or time of day and that was annoying to me since it took away quite a bit of the fluidity of the storytelling which was very interesting and I just felt disconnected at times. I also enjoyed all the characters especially Manod's spitfire of a little sister. A little folklore and superstitions were blended in well and all in all this was a very engaging, dark, gloomy and emotional book that many people will enjoy.

I want to thank the publisher "Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor" and Net galley for the opportunity to read this book and any thoughts or opinions expressed are unbiased and mine alone!

I have given a rating of 3 1/2 BLEAK AND MOROSE 🌟🌟🌟🌠 STARS!!

This book is a short and often heart-breaking book. It captured life on this small island both in terms of the pleasures of everyday life and the difficulties of rough challenges and isolation from others. The heart (and heartbreak) of the book comes in its portrayal of ethnography at this point in history (and some now, truth be told). The disregard for the islanders and exoticizing of their lives and experiences was exactly what was happening in the field of anthropology, and it was portrayed extremely well in this novel. So in some ways this is a "not much happens" kind of book, but in many ways so much happened that was both beautiful and incredibly disturbing.

I could smell the ocean, hear the kittiwakes and gannets and feel the isolation instantly in this amazing debut novel. Manor Llan is a young woman who lives on a remote Welsh island with her father and younger sister Llinos. The population is shrinking with only a few fishermen and their families left. A dead beached whale and the arrival of two ethnographers cause Manod to think about her options for leaving the island for a better life or staying to help care for her sister. The symbolism of the dead whale and its usefulness to society compared to this dwindling community is not lost on the reader. Manod enjoys the simplicity of her life but is enticed by the ethnographers and the attention paid to her. Elizabeth O’Connor is a wonderful storyteller letting us feel the struggles and pain of the main character Manod.

4.5 actually

Thank you to #Pantheon, #Knopf, #Vintage, #Anchor and #NetGalley for the DRC of #Whale Fall.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this eARC.

In the literary tapestry of Elizabeth O’Connor’s debut novel, “Whale Fall,” readers are transported to a remote island off the coast of Wales in 1938, where the fabric of a small community is as intricate and fragile as the ecosystem surrounding it. The novel centers on Manod, an eighteen-year-old girl whose life is as rugged and windswept as the island she calls home.

O’Connor’s prose is as haunting as the whale fall that becomes the novel’s central metaphor—a symbol of both death and life, of endings that give way to new beginnings. The narrative is a poignant exploration of visibility and invisibility, of the ways in which we are seen by others and how that gaze shapes our own self-perception.

Manod’s journey is one of self-discovery, set against the backdrop of a world on the brink of war and a community grappling with its own survival. Her interactions with the English ethnographers, Edward and Joan, serve as a catalyst for her awakening, not just to her own desires and ambitions but also to the beauty and value of her culture and way of life.

“Whale Fall” is a novel that deftly examines the tension between the known and the unknown, the familiar and the foreign. It is a story that resonates with the current global climate of change and uncertainty, making it a timely and timeless read. O’Connor’s narrative is a reminder of the delicate balance between preserving one’s heritage and embracing the possibilities of the future.

With its lyrical language and deep emotional resonance, “Whale Fall” is a novel that will linger in the minds and hearts of readers long after the last page is turned. It is a testament to the power of storytelling and its ability to connect us to the most profound aspects of human experience. This book is a must-read for those who appreciate the interplay of history, culture, and personal growth within the realm of fiction.

Thank you Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor | Pantheon for allowing me to read and review Whale Fall on NetGalley.

Published: 05/07/24

Stars: 3.5

O'Connor did a fabulous job on the length of the story. Her storytelling is good. Albeit I was bored at times and found my mind wandering. This is a subject and period I would rather see than read.

I recommend slowly reading, letting each chapter resonate for the full effect of the life.

I would like to reread this in the winter; I think the effect will be different. I will appreciate the writing then.

What a beautifully written debut novel. Reminds me of Claire Keegan in its ability to pack so much into a short amount of pages. Tons of beautiful imagery fully immersing you in life on a small isolated Welsh island with folklore, traditions and songs embedded in the story. Manod has lost her mother and is raising her younger sister on an isolated island just before the beginning of WWII. A whale becomes stranded on shore and brings attention and two visitors from the mainland documenting life on the island but their intentions and motives may not be pure. Manod struggles with staying on the island with the people she loves or following her longing for a different life on the mainland. Rich, brilliant and stunning debut.

I should have absolutely loved this story. It has the sort of setting, characters and themes that are clear indicators of five stars to me. And don’t get me wrong, I still enjoyed it, but I have a few issues that made me feel too detached from the story.
Thought the simplistic and bleak writing style was definitely intentional, I found it didn’t work for me. Instead of delivering the story as a gut punch, it actually left me disinterested in it. It was a very weird experience - I could appreciate the story as the carefully crafted piece of art that it was and yet still have no enthusiasm for reading it.
I also found the relationships to be underdeveloped, perhaps due to the short page count, but nonetheless frustratingly so. They felt very one-dimensional and like archetypes I’ve seen countless times before, ultimately bringing nothing new to the table.
While the main character’s story was compelling and her internal struggles were well-depicted, her personality and character itself felt very lacking. Once again, I can see that it was most likely intentional, but it did not work here as well as I had seen in some other works of literature. She felt like a tool for the author to portray their ideas instead of actual living human being, and so, no matter how interesting those ideas were, the story fell flat.
I did enjoy the themes of the novel. The main character struggles with wanting to seek out resources and opportunities beyond her closed off island yet battles the desire to remain and preserve the culture in her rapidly shrinking community (and feels defensive against Western critiques and perceptions of it). As someone who has emigrated from a second world country to the ultimate Western nations - the UK and the US - I felt this internal confusion strongly. I think Whale Fall adds interesting conversation to the contemporary challenges of those within underdeveloped communities, especially the minorities, who want the acceptance not present in their current livelihoods yet simultaneously feel the urge to protect them.
Overall, this is an interesting short novel that, because of its size, I would recommend those interested in it pick up. It fell short in some ways, but ultimately it was an interesting exploration of identity within small communities!

Whale Fall was a beautiful, cozy read with surprising depth in the characters, setting, and plot. The prose is tastefully artistic, darting between recountings of island folklore to the protagonist's hopes, dreams, and modest island life. The story explores people's lives on a fictional Welsh island at the cusp of WWII, whose inhabitants are abandoning their homes to live on the mainland. Our protagonist is torn between these two worlds, trying desperately to fit in with the modern English visitors, while remaining loyal to her family, culture, and customs. There's also an insidious undercurrent around the power imbalance between men and women, researchers and subjects, and among socioeconomic classes. Truly a lot to impart to the reader in less than 250 pages, while remaining a great book to read casually.

Thank you to Netgalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor publishers for an ARC of the book in exchange for an honest review!

I enjoyed this short read. The dialect and certain verbiage used was intimidating at first but it made the story more authentic. Once I got past this, I really got into the story and wanted the best for the characters. While I could say this book could have been made longer with more character and relationship development, I appreciate that the author got to the point - none of those other details matter to the specific plot of the book.

Whale Fall is a debut novel from Elizabeth O’Connor set on a small island off the coast of Wales during the late 1930s. The novel follows a teenage girl, Manod, whose yearning to explore and see the world conflicts with her roots to her family and homeland. Excitement comes to the island when a dead whale washes up onto the island bringing two researchers from Oxford to the island.

Elizabeth O'Connor's writing is beautiful - it's especially good considering it's a debut. The descriptions of the natural world, in particular, are vivid and contemplative, giving a really strong sense of place. It's not a very big or fast-moving plot, but the characters and setting leave a lot to reflect on.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

If I could go back, I'd approach this book as more of a slow commentary on the way outsiders can influence a society in subtle and less of a story with a clear and dramatic outcome of these outsiders. I kept waiting for some big things to occur and nothing ever did, but the beauty of the book was in the small, insidious ways that the outsiders coming to observe changed the way people on the island interacted with each other and behaved in general. Like a literary fiction novel, there isn't a huge resolution here, but you're left with a feeling of loss in the way the culture is disappearing.

I read somewhere that the author's own grandparents came from small, depopulated islands in Wales and Ireland, so it makes sense that she situated the story in Wales. Yet, I couldn't help but think about how much deeper the impact of anthropologists and other outsiders has been on more isolated cultures with completely different traditions, languages, etc. Still, if depopulated islands in the British Isles are of particular interest to you, this is worth a read.

A huge thank you to the author and the publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

(Thanks to @pantheonbooks #gifted.) Elizabeth O’Connor, a debut author, has written a bleak story of a young woman’s desperate longing for escape in her slim novel 𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗟𝗘 𝗙𝗔𝗟𝗟. Eighteen year old Manod lives on a small island off the Welsh coast. Only 12 families inhabit the island, and, as children grow up, they often leave. It’s 1938 when at the start of fall a whale is beached on the island. Soon after, a pair of anthropologists arrive to study life on this tiny island.⁣
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Manod’s life seems to be a looping grind of caring for her father and younger sister, cleaning fish, keeping up a home, but not using her mind as she so loved in school. When the anthropologists hire her to translate and assist them, Manod’s world is opened up. She sees possibilities she’s never truly considered. Her struggle between self and those she loves is one we can all sympathize with.⁣
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While I found the entire premise of this book interesting and unique, I didn’t love my time on the island. The setting and the people felt so overwhelmingly grim that even I wanted to flee. I also didn’t love some of O’Connor’s writing style. Conversations were stilted, often ending before they’d really begun. I found it jarring and kept going back, thinking I’d missed something. I appreciate the originality and the atmospheric setting, but I was happy to leave this island. ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Whale Fall is a quiet novel that reminds me quite a bit of Carys Davies' Clear. We follow Manod, a bright young woman living on a fictional island off the coast of Wales that has seen a severe decrease in population due to climate change, overfishing, and a change in generational priorities.

I went into this novel thinking that the washing up of a whale on the island's beaches caused a chain of events to start happening on the island, but alas. I seemed to have read a completely different plot. While the body of a dead whale is, indeed, involved, this is more a slower, subtler novel about the arrival of two English folks looking to write about life on this island and Manod working as their assistant.

I appreciated the way the author framed this through Manod's perspective so we could see the damage these researchers were doing in their writing a false narrative. Hopefully readers will call into question the ways history has been written throughout time and approach it much differently moving forward. I think that was the most important thing I grabbed from this book. Otherwise, expect beautiful language and beautiful descriptions, commentary on "progress" and modernity, and the struggles of smaller communities holding onto traditions while also trying to move forward with the rest of society.

While not quite what I thought it would be, I'm still glad I read it. Thank you to NetGalley and Pantheon for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. This title published May 7, 2024.