I read the audio version of My Father the Whale, a story set in “almost” all of Australia. It is a lovely debut novel and I think about it a lot. Ruby and her father Mitch travel all over the country, living in a “Kombi,” which is part camper van, part tent, as they use it. (I think it is a VW camper.) Early on, they compete in a talent contest with both locals and travelers trying for the prize. It’s hard to write about this book in general and to avoid spoilers, so I will let the reader discover their act. It’s a fun scene. Ruby is nine. Father and daughter are very close and living on the edge financially, barely able to afford food. Along the way, they enjoy the Australian coast, Ruby learning about history and concepts in context. Thus, Ruby, a very bright child, is being educated but is not in school. Mitch does not allow her to mix too much with people. He schools her on how to answer if authorities question them. They have a close and loving bond but, while he will have a beer with people along the way and a fling with a woman here and there, Mitch is a suspicious and careful person and Ruby lives a rather isolated life. It’s what she knows and she is emotionally mature and reads and makes art and knows that she cannot ask about her mother. Mitch is highly critical of conventional people, those driven by wealth and materialism and pretty much anyone but Ruby. He is a grifter of sorts but one never takes anything offered by anyone because they will want something.
When the Kombi breaks down and needs very expensive repairs, they get stuck in a small town with a fish factory as its main employer. Vagabond Mitch is chomping at the bit to earn enough money to hit the road again. The story evolves as Ruby begins to interact with people and understands what a family that is settled in one place looks like. Mitch is known to leave Ruby on her own at times and she is incredibly self-sufficient, but she. is. nine! Not okay. So, while their life worked and their love for one another is plain, the nine year old in 1984 wants more. Having been raised to be independent and self-sufficient, she achieves the stability she desires, but she loses her father. This is a coming of age book that takes a huge leap between nine year old Ruby and twenty-something Ruby. All of it is told by Ruby. Mitch comes back into her adult life after she has lived many years with a family she connected with. Ruby’s and Mitch’s relationship these many years has consisted of postcards and a smattering of phone calls. Ruby yearns for Mitch, her only parent and friend of her early years. But she struggles with feelings of abandonment and rejection, because to find stability she lost her father.
I adored the audiobook because the narrator is Australian and it was so much fun to hear the words, including vernacular unfamiliar to me, in Ruby’s “real” voice. This is a lovely novel that emotionally engaged me. Mitch is complicated and can both engender admiration and piss you off but he is fascinating. There are hardships and ways Mitch’s influence on Ruby and the opportunities he gave her shaped her in good ways. The town she ends up in, Whalers Bay, is a character itself, with hierarchies and neighborliness and a protective air about it, as well as some rejection for Ruby. Ultimately, Ruby’s relationship to the town and the family that took her in remind us we can create a family of choice. Still many who do that are in pain that their original family relationships broke down. Mitch suddenly returns to town when Ruby is in her twenties and all the heartache and hope roils in Ruby.
Father and daughter’s plain desire to find a way back to one another is hampered by who each has become and by Mitch’s ongoing inability to have deeper conversations with Ruby that could heal their rift. The love is there and their shared history makes us root for them. Read the audio book of this if you use audio at all. It is just lovely. Highly recommend!
They Called me Bookworm 