Whalefall: A Novel

Jay Gardiner dives into the Pacific Ocean off Monastery Beach searching for his deceased father's remains, hoping to resolve the guilt he has carried since his father's suicide a year earlier. During the dive, a giant squid and then a sperm whale appear. Jay is caught in the squid's tentacles and pulled into the whale's mouth, ending up in the first of its four stomachs. Trapped inside the eighty-foot, sixty-ton whale, Jay has approximately one hour before his oxygen runs out. He must find a way to escape while confronting his inner struggles. The novel combines scientific accuracy with suspense as it follows a young man facing both external danger and internal demons in an extreme survival situation.