Novel about whales. Help!

July 17, 2020 12:36 AM

I remember reading this novel about whales around 25 years ago. Did it actually exist?

think I found it in a hospital waiting room on one of those take one/leave one shelves. It was a thick mass-market paperback for adults (so not Y.A.). Whales were the main characters. It wasn’t about humans interacting with whales, it was just about the whales. It wasn’t fantasy or sci-fi- at least in that it was about real whales on earth, not another special whale planet or something. It just anthropomorphised normal whales and dramatised their lives. I think whale songs figured prominently.

Did I just make all this up? No google searching has been successful.

posted by cilantro to Media & Arts (3 answers total)

Best answer: whalesong by robert siegel came out in 1986. maybe that was it? it was also the first of a trilogy so perhaps another book in that series.
posted by koroshiya at 1:54 AM on July 17, 2020

Response by poster: I have such strong memories of it being a really thick paperback and not YA but it looks like you're right- the character names in the synopsis are really ringing bells for me.
posted by cilantro at 3:55 AM on July 17, 2020

Best answer: That also describes Whale, by Jeremy Lucas (1981).
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 8:13 AM on July 17, 2020 [1 favorite]