The Whiteness of the Whale

by David Poyer

An antiwhaling expedition to the freezing Antarctic takes a violent turn in this powerful novel from bestselling author and sailor David Poyer.After a tragic accident maims her laboratory assistant, Dr. Sara Pollard's career as a primate behaviorist lies in ruins. With nothing left to lose, Pollard – descendant of a Nantucket captain whose ship was sunk by a rogue whale – accepts an offer to join anti-whaling activists on a round-the-world racing yacht as the resident scientist. The plan is to sail from Argentina to the stormy Antarctic Sea. There they'll shadow, harass, and expose the Japanese fleet, which continues to kill and process endangered whales in internationally-declared sanctuaries.But everyone aboard Black Anemone has a secret, or something to live down. Her crew—including a beautiful but narcissistic film celebrity, an Afghan War veteran in search of the buzz of combat, and an enigmatic, obsessive captain—will confront hostile whalers, brutal weather, dangerous ice, near-mutiny, and romantic conflict. But no one aboard is prepared for what Nature herself has in store . . . when they're targeted by a massive creature with a murderous agenda of its own.Filled with violence, beauty, and magical evocations of life in the most remote waters on Earth, The Whiteness of the Whale is a powerful adventure by a master novelist.

Genres: Fiction

333 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 2, 2013

About the author

Aka D.C. Poyer.

DAVID C. POYER was born in DuBois, PA in 1949. He grew up in Brockway, Emlenton, and Bradford, in western Pennsylvania, and graduated from Bradford Area High School in 1967. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1971, and later received a master's degree from George Washington University.

Poyer's active and reserve naval service included sea duty in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, Arctic, Caribbean, and Pacific, and shore duty at the Pentagon, Surface Warfare Development Group, Joint Forces Command, and in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. He retired in July 2001.

Poyer began writing in 1976, and is the author of nearly fifty books, including THE MED, THE GULF, THE CIRCLE, THE PASSAGE, TOMAHAWK, CHINA SEA, BLACK STORM, THE COMMAND, THE THREAT, KOREA STRAIT, THE WEAPON, THE CRISIS, THE CRUISER, TIPPING POINT, HUNTER KILLER, DEEP WAR, OVERTHROW, VIOLENT PEACE, ARCTIC SEA, and THE ACADEMY, best-selling Navy novels; THE DEAD OF WINTER, WINTER IN THE HEART, AS THE WOLF LOVES WINTER, THUNDER ON THE MOUNTAIN, and THE HILL, set in Western Pennsylvania; and HATTERAS BLUE, BAHAMAS BLUE, LOUISIANA BLUE, and DOWN TO A SUNLESS SEA, underwater diving adventure.

Other noteworthy books are THE ONLY THING TO FEAR, a historical thriller, THE RETURN OF PHILO T. McGIFFIN, a comic novel of Annapolis, and the three volumes of The Civil War at Sea, FIRE ON THE WATERS, A COUNTRY OF OUR OWN, and THAT ANVIL OF OUR SOULS. He's also written two sailing thrillers, GHOSTING and THE WHITENESS OF THE WHALE. His work has been published in Britain, translated into Japanese, Dutch, Italian, Hugarian, and Serbo-Croatian; recorded for audiobooks, iPod downloads, and Kindle, and selected by the Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club and other book clubs. Rights to several properties have been sold or optioned for films, and two novellas appeared in the Night Bazaar series of fantasy anthologies.

Poyer has taught or lectured at Annapolis, Flagler College, University of Pittsburgh, Old Dominion University, the Armed Forces Staff College, the University of North Florida, Christopher Newport University, and other institutions. He has been a guest on PBS's "Writer to Writer" series and on Voice of America, and has appeared at the Southern Festival of Books and many other literary events. He taught in the MA/MFA in Creative Writing program at Wilkes University for sixteen years. He is currently core faculty at the Ossabaw Writers Retreat, a fellow of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and a board member of the Northern Appalachia Review.

He lives on Virginia's Eastern Shore with novelist Lenore Hart.

Reviews

[Eric Hatch · Rating 5 out of 5]

A rich and horrifying tale of human folly and divine indifference

I happen to be a life-long sailor (though with limited blue water experience) with an ancient doctorate in American and English fiction from U.Va … I’ve published a bit on Conrad, and am in general an afficionado of tales of the sea. I’ve read all of Patrick O’brian (most twice), and I’ve read the available literature on the Essex and the horrid consequences THAT entailed. I've read (and conversed) with the late Tristan Jones (author of "Ice," an account of his two-year entrapment in the arctic floes).

It’s with this background that I write to say bravo. In The Whiteness of the Whale Mr. Poyer has done Melville (and himself) proud. He's done a fine job with all the elements in a great sea story, especially his descriptions of the dank, hypnotic, and repetitive life under sail. Sailing is ordinarily hours of boredom spiced by moments of terror -- but in this sea novel, time for boredom is taken up by staying warm, trying to get dry, and hoping for the occasional hot meal. And terror ramps up as we go along.

Mr. Poyer writes wonderful descriptions of the amazing colorations of the ice and the sounds it makes. Glacial ice is amazing stuff, and definitely not boring!

Mr. Poyer's prose style and Melville’s are more than150 years apart, so his is of course more muscular and direct, as it should be.

But while Melville is a source, this is "Moby through the Warp Drive." Melville's details are caught, flensed, and rendered to suit Poyer's ends. Mr. Poyer cherishes his source, but make no mistake, The Whiteness of the Whale is HIS book, more pointed and directly ironic than Melville's vast and impenetrable whiteness. Ironies pile up like ice on the rigging, the largest being the need for the most ardent whale-hugger fanatic to use an explosive grenade to kill the whale he has endangered every soul aboard to save.

Mr Poyer has captured and updated key details to good effect: he has even updated Queequeg’s coffin, now made up from the floating corpse of Dorée (the self-centered movie star), and the Rachel, in pursuit of her lost children, is embodied in an Argentinian cruiser responding to a wispy SOS.

I enjoyed the respect shown to Melville, and other source materials, but this is a new work, and the mocha-colored whiteness of the whale seems to be even more opaque and indecipherable than Melville’s irreducible monster. I loved the ruthlessness with which Mr. Poyer dispatches the boat's crew, a remorseless fate working itself out. Ceremonies, life-savers, star-shells, and aluminum bats all fail to prevail against the malignant menace of this generation's Moby Dick.

This is the first of Mr. Poyer's books I have read, but it will not be the last.

[Brick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Truly a thriller, with vivid descriptions of the seas and weather in Antarctica. The author's background is prodigious and lends tremendous verisimilitude to his descriptions of the place and the privations experienced by the crew of this sailboat in extremely hostile conditions. The physical difficulties are so overwhelmingly horrible, that I found myself concluding that all of those involved must truly be crazy, and the character development and backstory development was not adequate to the task of explaining why the crew would subject themselves to this tortuous trip.

The captain and crew put themselves in harms way to "save the whales" by interfering with the phony research activity that allows the Japanese whaling fleet to violate international agreements and slaughter whales, and harms way includes not only the violent weather and seas, but also the murderous captain of one of the killer ships that is part of the whaling fleet, who has previously rammed a similar boat trying to interfere with the whaling slaughter, leading to the drowning of several of their crew.

Puzzling philosophical and moral conundrum in that the captain and crew of the sailboat are willing to risk their lives and the lives of their crewmates but only some of the crew are finally willing to take the lives of the whalers who have tried to kill them by ramming their sailboat. Finally all but one of the crew is killed in a continuing confrontation with a wounded sperm whale, in the process firing an explosive tipped projectile into the wounded sperm whale after the whale repeatedly rams their sailboat each time they use their auxiliary engines, which send out acoustic noise similar to the noise of the whalers' ships. In the effort to save the whales, the sailboaters have been willing to risk the lives of their companions, themselves, and the whalers, but in the final confrontation with the wounded sperm whale only one of their number sacrifices herself swimming to the whale in a vain attempt to pull out the harpoon and getting bitten in half for her trouble, while the remaining crew fights for their lives and kill the whale while losing all but one of their number, with no discussion of further sacrifice before striking the fatal blow to the whale. This endangered animal, possessor of the largest mammalian brain on the planet, does not seem to show gratitude for the sacrifices of the sailboat crew, members of the alien species that is exterminating is cetacean brethren and its own species, and so is killed for its ingratitude.

[Chris Campion · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interestingly modern retelling of Melville's Moby Dick. The setting is an antiwhaling expedition (think Whale Wars) in which the crew fights a Japanese whaling fleet. However, the odds are eventually not in their favor, and tragedy strikes hard. On top of everything, there's a gigantic white sperm whale that begins to pursue their boat. The rest is up to you ... But I highly recommend this book. In fact, I highly recommend all his books.

Poyer's writing is second-to-none. He's able to endlessly describe the sea and sky with beautiful poetic prose and similes and metaphors that make you say "Damn!" The way he lays the plot out, you're never quite sure what exactly will happen next, or who you can trust. His words hit all your senses and you easily feel as if you're right there in the boat with the crew. He's simply a fantastic writer; a true artist with words.

[Stacy Bearse · Rating 4 out of 5]

A terrific nautical saga about an 80-ft. sailboat navigating the trecherous waters of the Antarctic. The crew is a blend of salt and scientist. Their mission: to shut down Japanese whaling operations. The parallel with television's Whale Wars is obvious; indeed, WW's Sea Shepherds are referenced in the book. The story is told through the eyes of a female scientist which, I regret to say, introduces a Peyton Place storyline (who's lusting for/sleeping with whom). However, the shipboard shenanigans don't overwhelm the natural excitement of this nautical thriller. The author, an experienced sailor, uses just enough sailboat jargon to lend the story an air of authenticity, without turning off landlubber readers.

[James Hill · Rating 2 out of 5]

from James:

It's probably not fair of me to review this book since I only made it to page 2. Precisely, I made it to this passage: "His grip closed on hers strong as any human grip she'd ever felt. Rough as old leather, hard as rusted iron. She shivered at the memory it evoked of another hand, even more powerful."

So, which was it? As strong as any she'd ever felt or weaker than the one she remembers? I hate this kind of writing.

[Katie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I give one star, not because of poor writing but because there was so much language that I did not understand I could not do it. If you understand navy lingo and boats then this is a beautifully crafted novel. All if David poyers books are navy based war adventures and i did not know David poyer when I got the book. Oh well! Enjoy, if you so choose too!

[Ian D. Fetigan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible story

Having sailed several blue water crossings I found this book to be authentic and honest and very well written. I cannot imagine the challenge of this in such extreme conditions. I will definitely stick to warm water sailing.

[Rashel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edge of your seat fearsome book. It's like a train you know is going to derail, you just cant tell how bad it's going to be. Awesome, great read.

[Carmen · Rating 4 out of 5]

very intense and everyone dies

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a rollicking anti-whaling adventure that barreled through one mishap after another in the seas around Antarctica, and I kept wondering how in the heck the small crew was going to survive it all. While the story was fairly compelling, I found the writing frustrating because it was like reading a foreign language. The heavily used technical terminology and nautical terms were completely baffling and required frequent re-reading to garner at least a bit of comprehension about what was going on. The author clearly has first-hand experience at sailing and he's writing a high-seas adventure, so he is certainly qualified to use all that jargon. But sentences like, "The queer no-color muffled the boom's clank, the cutwater's rush." And "toppling over the coaming," left me more than annoyed. I wanted to like the book, but I couldn't. Skimming over vast portions of the text is not a good sign. The characters were pretty one-dimensional as well, but on the whole, it was a great adventure, and would be especially fun for someone who understands sailing terminology.

[Zinta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yet again, I watched another news story on the evening news that matched almost exactly the story David Poyer tells in The Whiteness of the Whale. This may be a novel, but it is based on factual scenarios, happening all too often on the oceans. As in real life, the novel tells a story of activists in pursuit of a Japanese whaling fleet they’ve observed killing whales and processing the whales for meat. That has long been illegal for all but scientific research purposes, yet the Japanese still hunt and kill whale in the Antarctic waters, hiding behind the banner of “research.”

The activists in pursuit are a motley crew. A primate behaviorist, a Hollywood movie star, a double-amputee Afghanistan war veteran, and others, each adding their own storyline and colorful personality as they sail together on the Black Anemone.

They are not the only ones in pursuit. After an altercation with the Japanese whaling fleet, described with unnerving detail that makes the suffering of the whales uncomfortably memorable, the Black Anemone picks up a castaway. More, they pick up a tail. At this point, the story takes on echoes of Moby Dick, as a whale turns on the boat and goes out of its way to destroy the ship and the crew.

Poyer writes from a base of experience. He has a 30-year sea career on which to base his many sea novels. That kind of first-hand knowledge adds all kinds of subtle layers of nuance that bring scene after scene alive, some terrifyingly so. There are sections of the book that, when read, leave what feels like an uncanny splash of seawater on the reader’s face.

The activists don’t always come off as heroes. They appear human. Characters show their weaknesses as well as their heroic moments. The whale recognizes none, in dogged pursuit, seemingly enraged by the slaughter those very activists tried to prevent.

Poyer’s strongest characterizations are, in fact, the whale and the primate behaviorist, Dr. Sara Pollard. It’s not often one reads such accurate and effective cross-gender writing, but Poyer captures her female voice precisely.

I enjoyed the book enough to want to know more, and asked the author to do an author interview in the Summer/Fall 2013 Issue of The Smoking Poet. My hope is that such novels take on a life outside of the fiction world and enter into the movement to save whales from the kind of barbarous scenes of slaughter Poyer describes and evening news show all too often.

David Poyer’s naval career included service in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, Arctic, Caribbean, and Pacific. His thirty-plus books, including twenty sea novels, have been translated into Italian, Dutch, Japanese, and other languages. He’s also written sailing, diving, and nautical history articles for Chesapeake Bay, Southern Boating, Shipmate, Tidewater Virginian, and other periodicals. His work has been required reading in the Literature of the Sea course at the U.S. Naval Academy, along with that of Joseph Conrad and Herman Melville. He lives on the Eastern Shore of Virginia with his wife and daughter, with whom he explores the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic coast in their sloop, Water Spirit.

[D. Norman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, what a harrowing adventure, beautifully written.

[Dean Cummings · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Think not your journey’s done.
For though your ship be sturdy.
No mercy has the sea.
Will you survive on the ocean of being?
Come ancient children hear what I say.
This is my parting council for you on your way.”

Genesis – “Watcher of the Skies”

Very early on, the story settles rather wonderfully into a rich, textured aura of anxiousness, amazement and the promise of extreme adventure. This sense of atmosphere flowed from the wonderful way that Poyer describes the most important features of these opening pages. Here were a few standouts for me:

Ushuaia – The southernmost city in Argentina and the launch point of this great sailing adventure:

“Gigantic peaks reared in some ancient and unimaginably violent collision, glowing fingers of cloud groped towards a shabby jumble of tin roofs. Hills that bulged as if monsters writhed beneath them.”

“Black Anemone” – The sailboat that was to take the crew on their expedition:

“It was all white fiberglass and curves. A broad stern tapered like a splitting-wedge to a retro looking bowsprit. Her smooth sides gleamed stark as an iceberg.”

The Captain – Dru Perrault

“This man’s skin was weathered dark, though he couldn’t be much past thirty. His cropped hair was black and his beard stubble was painted with pewter. Ivory teeth gleamed in a reluctant and quickly erased smile. A tear in his sweater had been stitched with oiled twine.”

Chapter one was a mere eight pages long, but by the time I’d passed through it, I found myself transported already, deep into Poyer’s tale of the saltwater sea, a sure and proven craft, a diverse and wholehearted crew and, most of all, nature’s way of helping us see the things we though we knew from a completely different perspective.

This one’s going to linger with me for some time.

[John Bastin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an engrossing tale about a group of environmentalists who take on the task of contesting and obstructing Japanese whalers who were (are) illegally killing whales by the hundreds in the Southern Ocean, near Antarctica. There are detailed descriptions of the actual difficulties, many and hazardous, of just sailing a small boat in that part of the world, let alone fighting with whaling vessels many times the size and strength of your vessel.

The characters in this story literally risk their lives in the effort to perform their objective, and many lives are actually lost before the tale comes to an end.

This is a must-read story, after reading it you'll never look in the same way, again, at battles to save the environment.

[S.E. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel comes across like a Moby Dick for our times. What! Compare a contemporary novelist to the literary god Melville. All I know is that when I read him I cared and feared for the agendas of everyone on the ship, tasted the salt in the tears and in the air, and didn't want the pages to end. Same here in this masterful tale of an ANTI-whaling vessel heading to Antarctica. For Dr. Pollard its a last effort to resurrect her career and in some strange way avenge the death of a Nantucket sea captain by a rogue whale. Each member of the diverse crew has pathos that can be served during their trek. A powerful tale that illustrates how one man's passion is nothing compared to the will of nature.

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first David Poyer novel, but I'd definitely be interested in reading more of his work. It reminded me in some ways of early Michael Crichton, the way in which he weaves science and the details of running a specialized sailing vessel with all of the traditional elements of a thriller. Although the book alludes frequently to Moby Dick, and some of the plot developments parallel that story, it's not necessary to be aware of Melville to enjoy the story. The setting and subject matter felt fresh to me, and in my mind it's the perfect kind of beach book - it's a thriller that stays smart and doesn't dumb things down too much for the audience.

[Cindy Christiansen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book moved along very slowly for me. The plot focused on a group of people on a boat headed for the Antarctic to stop the Japanese from killing whales. All of the characters had slightly different motivations for being on board. This caused the plot to waver around a bit, and the author spent lots of time describing the horrific conditions on board the boat. Those were the two primary reasons for my rating of this book.

[Leanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read David Poyer on and off for years for his adventure and Navy stories. This was completely different. A story of a small ship and its crew trying to stop the whaling practices of the Japanese. The characters were interesting but not fully developed. The plot was full of action. The book surprised me with its darkness and the ending completely took me by surprise. Not a neat and tidy ending.

[David Rubin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a great fan of David Poyer's Dan Lenson books involving contemporary naval warfare, both on the seas and in the Pentagon.

This book is one of his civilian on the water books and is his very clever and thoughtful attempt to retell the Moby Dick story in modern terms. His language is, as always, spell-binding, masterful, and highly descriptive. I just wish he managed to save more people.

[Cecilia · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was on the "new fiction" shelf at the library and sounded interesting. It's not. It was filled with ultra-technical sailing and navy language and terminology that bored me beyond description. I scanned the last 100 pages to get to a predictable pointless conclusion. I would characterize it as a very lame "Moby Dick" wannabe!

[Doug McCoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Crichton, Stephen King, Moby Dick, and Titanic all wrapped up in a tidy 320 page package. I served with the author on a USNR cruise once and he has no modern day equal in Naval fiction. His attention to detail really shows through here...great stuff!

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're looking for an action-filled literary read, this is for you. Poyer's descriptions are poetic and beautiful. I loved that just when I thought I was at the climax of the book, something else happened.

[4estgrump · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have yet to read anything my David Poyer that has disappointed me. The characters are imperfect, yet interesting. I will admit that this is a 'dark' story. Definitely not going to be turned into a Disney movie.

[Mike Pedersen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars may be a little generous. i loved the descriptions of the voyage, the ocean, the cold and wind, and the immensity of it all. that being said, the characters were caricatures - too far removed from reality to be really believable.

[Brooke · Rating 5 out of 5]

I selected this book initially because it fit the criteria for the winter reading program in our county, once I got into it I couldn't put it down! The writing is so full of imagery that I sometimes felt the wet chill and had empathy for the characters - including the whales, of course...

[Peg Williams]

Amazing read. You feel as if you are on the ship - feeling the freezing cold water and uncomfortable living situation - feeling the fear of the crew - it's as if you are immersed in the story. Great writing!

[Sandi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, gripping storyline, but a bit much in the details on sailing and ships/boats. Found myself skimming over some of that, altho I do appreciate the details and how someone who's into sailing would like that.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, THAT was interesting. The descriptions of sailing in these treacherous waters are fascinating...

[Caren · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I have ever read.

[Sonia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it in some ways and didn't in others. I can see it as a plane read.