Strandings: Confessions of a Whale Scavenger

by Peter Riley

When Peter Riley was thirteen, a woman with blue hair and a comet tattoo asked him to help load the jaw of a sperm whale into the back of a Volvo 245. The encounter set Riley on a decades-long quest to make sense of what had happened.

Enter the secretive world of whale scavengers. When a whale washes up on one of Britain's coasts, a fugitive community descends to claim trophies from the carcass. Some are driven by magical beliefs. Some are motivated by profit: there is a black market for everything from ambergris to whaletooth sex toys. But for others, the need goes much deeper.

Join Riley on a tour of a stranded kingdom's weird outer reaches, where nothing is as it seems. Meet witches, pedlars, fetishists, conspiracy theorists and fallen aristocrats. And prepare for a final revelation, as the mystery of the comet woman tangles with the enigmatic symbol of Leviathan itself, beached on Britain's fatal shore.

Genres: Nonfiction

236 pages, Hardcover

Published October 3, 2023

Reviews

[Henry Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am lucky enough that my path has crossed with Peter Riley before picking up this book. While at Exeter Uni, I was in one of his classes for a term and witnessed what a force of nature he is in a seminar. His impassioned rants about late capitalism fuelled my changing political views and his affection for the wonder of the world was often contagious. Of all the tutors I had at Exeter, he is one of those who I remember most fondly and would be most excited to reunite with. So going into this book, his voice was strong in my head and I was rooting for him, and I was not disappointed at all! Dare I even say, my high expectations were surpassed? Superb melding of the personal and political, making me care very deeply about a subject that before the book I (no offence) had no interest in, alongside really effectively carrying his voice into print in a way that is never less than readable. With some of the things I read at Uni, that is meant as incredibly high praise.
A lot of people who went on to do bad things came through the doors at Exeter University. Though he is no longer affiliated, it makes me very proud of my former home that someone as talented as Peter Riley gifted us with his time, before leaving to go and be even more brilliant.

[Bookish Bethany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Had a whale of a time reading this!

Riley taught me poetry in my second year at university and was an excellent teacher. I always find it interesting reading about the other side of the classroom, and the lives of those who have taught us.

Although this book has nothing to do with teaching. This is a fantastic romp into the world of whales and their scavengers, a world I have scarcely encountered or heard of, a world of mystique and politics and rich with life (perhaps ironically given all the whale corpses). This book makes me want to cling to coastlines, have close encounters with beautiful strangers, and start a new life long fascination.

A great book.

[Cleo · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Just a bloody great book about whalebones, grief, and some of the colours of human weirdness -- has reaffirmed my utopian belief that everyone should have the opportunity (a funded sabbatical of a month or two) to write about a niche interest of theirs.

[Fin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Iconic opening & written by a Professor I had briefly in my 1st year of uni

- “When I was thirteen, I helped a woman with blue hair load the jaw of a sperm whale into the back of a yellow Volvo 245.”

[Mitch Karunaratne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't know about the UK whale scavenging scene - people bonded by the clandestine and for the most part illegal collection of whale body parts. For magic and for profit - for curiosity and for collection, the author becomes part of this informal network of people across the country in search of his own understanding of his relationship to whales and their impact on his psyche. Lots of interesting whale rated passion here - but also a little too much of the authors angst and psychological workings that I really didn't warm to. But the whale bits were fab!

[Daphne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was first introduced to this book through Miles Ellingham’s article, “Why Encountering a Beached Whale Profoundly Changes So Many People,” in the Financial Times. While Ellingham’s article is slightly unhinged, he largely flirts with the line between sanity and madness. During several points in this book, I got the distinct impression that Riley had squarely crossed that line. Nothing irredeemable, but it definitely contributed to the at-times unsettling tone of this book.

The subject matter is of course super unique, and it was very interesting to see how many offshoots a single event (a whale stranding) could have. While the “larger than life” quality of the author’s feelings towards whales is evident, I was unable to truly grasp the depth of it (not the fault of the author’s — I think it’s just the result of never having seen a large whale in the wild before).

Will revisit this book after having seen a whale in the wild!

[Kaila · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5 stars

This was a very intriguing book and definitely haven’t read anything else like it. It’s reflective, philosophical and highly captivating throughout. While I’m not sure I share the author’s views on the perhaps cosmic nature of the whale strandings, it was still fun to go on a ride that was both entertaining and informative.

[Madeline · Rating 3 out of 5]

"When I was thirteen, I helped a woman with blue hair load the jaw of a sperm whale into the back of a yellow Volvo 245. It only just fitted. What she'd got hold of wasn't quite as big as the one that greets you at the entrance of the Natural History Museum in Oxford; that's still the most enormous jaw I've ever seen. Nevertheless, what I helped carry was big. And heavy. Add to that the pounds of blubber and you get a sense of what we transported that morning - maybe the weight of a tall man. According to the butchers I've asked, it must have taken her at least half an hour to saw though. If you've ever handled a piece of whalebone, you'll know how durable and solid it feels - like reinforced, triple-weighted pumice. In the case of a sperm whale, it's even sturdier, needing to withstand higher water pressures that in other, shallower-diving members of its species. The blue-haired woman had accomplished this at night, alone, and in the steady Norfolk rain."

So opens Strandings, which is a strange, slim little nonfiction account of Peter Riley's exploration into the niche underground community of people who track stranded whales along England's coast and harvest the corpses for bones, teeth, and ambergris. Along with the formative experience with the whale scavenger he had as a teenager, Peter Riley is also a journalist and a Herman Melville scholar, so he is uniquely positioned to dive into this subculture - a subculture that, due to the murky legality of scavenging dead whales, relies on secrecy to survive.

This is a very brief book, and there were a lot of times when I found myself wishing that Riley had devoted decades to this project, so we could see him building stronger relationships with the scavengers he's able to track down, and give us a more in-depth look at their world. As it is, we get what amounts to brief vignettes of a handful of people, who are introduced and then fade into the background of the story almost immediately. The book is an odd blend of human interest stories, history of whale strandings in England (including a memorable account of the time a whale in Elizabethan England managed to swim into the Thames in central London and was almost immediately hacked to death by locals armed with axes), and impassioned plea against the dangers of global warming and industrialization. Each of these immense subjects can only be skimmed over, so again, I wonder if this book would have benefitted from a couple hundred more pages.

But at the same time, this is a deeply personal book - to the point where I almost shelved it under "memoir." Peter Riley's interest in whale scavengers began with a personal encounter when he was a teenager, so it follows that the subject will be deeply ingrained with who he is as a person. Peter Riley, the author, is an active character in this book, and I think the only reason it works is because the book is so short - in a longer and more in-depth account, I might have gotten annoyed with how often our impartial reporter pops into the narrative to tell us how he's feeling. So I guess that's one benefit of this book not being longer.

Overall, this serves mostly as an introduction to a much larger world, and a good jumping-off point to other books. It's interesting and engaging, but over as soon as it feels like it's starting to pick up steam.

[Katy Wheatley · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first page of this book, where the author recounts a time in his teens when he helped a woman put the jawbone of a whale in the back of her car, caught my interest and meant I had to read on, even though this is not a subject I would ordinarily choose to read about. Riley, an academic who lectures on, appropriately, Herman Melville, writes about the weird, obsessive underworld of people who hunt down and scavenge bits of dead whales. Believe me, it's a thing. This is slightly trippy, rather fascinating, entirely odd. I enjoyed it.

[Natalie Davey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrific book. Weaving the other worldly sub-culture of people who attend whale standings- with many strands of British history, maritime culture, literature, ocean health and Brexit. The author is drawn into this through an early experience which becomes a life-long obsession and the meaning of that obsession is explored in this wonderfully written and researched book. Surprising and insightful vehicle for exploring so many different themes pertinent to our troubled times.

[evelyn]

"To those who feel moved to come to the rescue: refuse the anaesthetising pleasures offered by the still swimming whale and pick up an axe"

Beautiful, interesting and completely and totally odd - I loved it.

Simultaneously suprised and not at the mention of Mark Fisher here because both this and his works (especially Ghosts of My Life) resonated with me in pretty similar ways

[Ian Lea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Different! Personal quest and more than you ever wanted to know about whale strandings around the UK, mostly. Odd but good.

[mia :•) · Rating 4 out of 5]

love when people are so into such niche things - made me actually want to read moby dick as well which is even more impressive

[Alexander Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written, but very niche in scope, does a nice job covering a curious sunset of society

[Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful poetic whale writing but the rambling about whales as economic metaphors got tiring ngl

[Thomas Betteridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent if strange book.