AustLit

'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)