Available March 11, 2025

*

Pre-order: via Bookshop.org // directly from Deep Vellum // your local bookstore

(if you buy from / support an independent bookstore, I’ll love you forever)

*

An allegory of extraction and a tale of adventure and endurance during the waning days of the American whaling industry.

Setting out from New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1878, the crew of the Esther is confident the sea will be theirs: in addition to cruising the Pacific for whale, they intend to hunt the teeming northern grounds before the ice closes. But as they sail to their final destination in the Chukchi Sea, their encounters with the natural world become more brutal, harrowing, ghostly, and strange.

With one foot firmly planted in the traditional sea-voyage narrative, and another in a blazing mythos of its own, this debut novel looks unsparingly at the cost of environmental exploitation and predation, and in doing so feverishly sings not only of the past but to the present and future as well.

*

Whales! Boats! The Arctic! Extreme Heat! Avenging Bird-Gods of the Sea! What’s not to love?

A companion album of original music composed by Peter C Murray coming soon, available only on cassette.