The Whale Tattoo - Softcover

Jon Ransom

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1838340114 ISBN 13: 9781838340117

Publisher: Muswell Press, 2022

Synopsis

The winner of the Polari First Book Prize 2023

‘SEE ALL FORMATS FOR NEW PAPERBACK (MARCH 23)’
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 pi*s 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.

About this title

About the Author

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.

Edition details

• Publisher: Muswell Press
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1838340114
• ISBN 13: 9781838340117
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240