Review of WHALE HARBOR by Mary Beth Keane (New Release)

 3.5 Stars

This novel, about the Joyces, an Irish family of eleven brothers, begins in 1963 and spans the next forty years.

A tragedy causes the family to be split apart. Macdara, the second oldest at 16, is offered a job on a Montana cattle ranch and he sets off. A younger brother, 9-year-old Rian, begs to come along and Macdara promises to bring him to the US once Rian is old enough. Four years later, Rian disappears; people suspect that he has run away. It’s that disappearance that haunts the brothers, especially Macdara, for decades.

The relationship between Macdara and Rian is wonderfully depicted. Rian is a spirited, curious child who follows his older brother like a shadow. When Macdara leaves, there’s a heart-breaking scene of Rian running after the car. Because Macdara doesn’t keep his promise to his brother, he is wracked by guilt when Rian disappears.

Macdara’s relationship with his father Cathal is complicated. Macdara has difficulty accepting many of the decisions Cathal makes and blames him for breaking up the family. It is interesting to see Macdara’s growth as he navigates different stages of his life. His perspective of others, including his father, changes over time. For instance, when Macdara becomes a father, he realizes that as a parent, he had no idea what he was doing: “Who ever knew what they were doing, what was best, until after the fact?” It is only later in life that Macdara realizes he never considered things from his father’s perspective; he focused on his feelings at leaving his family, but Lillie tells him to consider how parents felt when children left.

It’s also interesting to see Macdara realize that his brothers remember events differently. Depending on their ages when an event occurred, they may in fact have no memory of something that to Macdara is unforgettable. Macdara resents Nuala, but his younger brothers have an entirely different opinion of her.

The author must be given credit for making the brothers distinct enough that it is not difficult to remember who is who. What is lacking, however, is tension. Especially in the middle, the book reads more like a summary of marriages and births with large gaps. I found this section slow. The ending is not entirely satisfying because, though there is a resolution of sorts, there are unanswered questions.

Initially this book reminded me of Whale Fall by Elizabeth O’Connor – a whale washes up on shore and the community is subjected to the stench of a rotting carcass. Then there’s the arrival of people wanting to study the community and using the language skills of a young person. From these similarities however, the books go into entirely different directions and, though the whale is a symbol in both, it symbolizes entirely different ideas.

The novel tells an engaging story which emphasizes how being an adult means being able to understand behaviour from another person’s perspective and accepting that decisions which might initially have seemed cruel or irrational may in fact have been well-intentioned.

Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.