AustLit
Latest Issues
AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'To Become a Whale tells the story of 13-year-old Sam Keogh, whose mother has died. Sam has to learn how to live with his silent, hitherto absent father, who decides to make a man out of his son by taking him to work at Tangalooma, then the largest whaling station in the southern hemisphere. What follows is the devastatingly beautiful story of a gentle boy trying to make sense of the terrible reality of whaling and the cruelty and alienation of his new world, the world of men.
'Set around Moreton Island and Noosa in 1961, To Become a Whale is an extraordinarily vivid and haunting novel that reads like an instant classic of Australian literature. There are echoes of Craig Silvey, Favel Parrett, Tim Winton and Randolph Stow in this moving, transformative and very Australian novel.' (Publication summary)
Notes
-
Dedication: For Charlie and Henry
-
Epigraph: 'There's no eel so small but it hopes to become a whale.' -German Proverb
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
-
Father-and-son Dynamic Flensed
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 22 July 2017; (p. 22)'I have heard it said that men are reluctant to become fathers because we haven’t yet finished being children ourselves. There’s quite a bit of truth to that, I suspect. But, then, how do any of us become men? Who teaches us? What are the rites of passage that lead us into manhood? These are the questions Brisbane writer Ben Hobson seems to be contemplating in his moving debut novel, To Become a Whale.' (Introduction)
-
Ben Hobson : To Become a Whale
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 27 May - 2 June 2017; 'Australian coastal Gothic coming-of-age novels are perennially popular with readers and they come with a number of conventions. Ben Hobson’s debut, To Become a Whale, taps all of them neatly. It’s set in 1961, in coastal Queensland. Our sensitive, gentle, vulnerable protagonist is 13-year-old Sam Keogh, who’s too anxious to play football but good at school. At the beginning of the novel, Sam’s loving mother dies of an illness, leaving him reeling. He’s left in the care of his father, the man in turmoil. Walter is a cold, disagreeable and frequently cruel short man with missing fingers who was rarely home during Sam’s childhood because he works at the Moreton Island whaling station as a flenser for months on end, during the season. When his wife dies, Walter takes Sam away from everything he knows – their house, his grandparents and school – initially to a piece of vacant land closer to the water, where Walter plans to build and start again. ' (Introduction)
-
Ben Hobson : To Become a Whale
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 27 May - 2 June 2017; 'Australian coastal Gothic coming-of-age novels are perennially popular with readers and they come with a number of conventions. Ben Hobson’s debut, To Become a Whale, taps all of them neatly. It’s set in 1961, in coastal Queensland. Our sensitive, gentle, vulnerable protagonist is 13-year-old Sam Keogh, who’s too anxious to play football but good at school. At the beginning of the novel, Sam’s loving mother dies of an illness, leaving him reeling. He’s left in the care of his father, the man in turmoil. Walter is a cold, disagreeable and frequently cruel short man with missing fingers who was rarely home during Sam’s childhood because he works at the Moreton Island whaling station as a flenser for months on end, during the season. When his wife dies, Walter takes Sam away from everything he knows – their house, his grandparents and school – initially to a piece of vacant land closer to the water, where Walter plans to build and start again. ' (Introduction) -
Father-and-son Dynamic Flensed
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 22 July 2017; (p. 22)'I have heard it said that men are reluctant to become fathers because we haven’t yet finished being children ourselves. There’s quite a bit of truth to that, I suspect. But, then, how do any of us become men? Who teaches us? What are the rites of passage that lead us into manhood? These are the questions Brisbane writer Ben Hobson seems to be contemplating in his moving debut novel, To Become a Whale.' (Introduction)
Awards
- 2018 longlisted Indie Awards — Debut Fiction
- Tangalooma, Brisbane - North East, Brisbane, Queensland,
- Moreton Island, Brisbane - North East, Brisbane, Queensland,
- Noosa Heads, Noosa - Tewantin area, Sunshine Coast, South East Queensland, Queensland,
- 1961
