Whale Harbour

Tender, immersive and exquisitely written, Whale Harbour is the story of a family that seems borne out of both the land and the sea - one that aches with regret and thrums with longing. Mary Beth Keane finds the quiet in amongst the bustle of eleven brothers, to pore over their shared mythology and explore the loss, remorse, and fraternal bonds that follow each far into adulthood. I felt I knew the whole cast of characters intimately, as well as the landscapes they existed in - the Joyce’s Connemara, Montana, and New York will remain etched in my mind. I missed this book whenever I wasn’t reading it. Mary Beth Keane is one of my favourite storytellers and here, she’s at her finest. I adored it – Florence Knapp, bestselling author of The Names
Whale Harbour is an epic, almost mythic, novel. Keane is a master storyteller – Claire Kilroy, author of Soldier Sailor
Whale Harbour is an exquisite family epic. I was completely invested in the fates of all the Joyce brothers. The places and people were so expertly drawn, I felt like I walked beside them the whole way – Claire Lynch, author of A Family Matter
I picked up Whale Harbour and couldn’t stop reading. The gang of brothers, the missing brother, the father, the daughter, the whole family, Ireland, everything - it’s a great story, and beautifully written – Roddy Doyle, author of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
Whale Harbour is a sweeping family saga which gets to the heart of the Irish immigrant experience, from Connemara to Montana. Epic in scope and rich in detail, Whale Harbor understands the complex nature of family bonds, and the way that certain places never relinquish their hold on our imaginations – Roisín O’Donnell, author of Nesting
Whale Harbour is a very special book, the kind that comes along rarely. It is epic in scope yet, at the same time, so intimate and immersive I could scarcely catch my breath as I read. A meditation on what it means to be a family with all the secret heartaches and disappointments, the losses, and above all, the love that binds them together. Truly magnificent – Clare Leslie Hall, bestselling author of Broken Country
No one writes about the long arc of family - its loyalties, betrayals and returns - like Mary Beth Keane. Whale Harbour is an expansive, beautiful novel about how time can reshape love and kinship in ways we’d never anticipate, and a reminder that every family contains a world – Kathy Wang, author of The Satisfaction Cafe

Mary Beth Keane attended Barnard College and the University of Virginia, where she received an MFA. She was awarded a John S. Guggenheim fellowship for fiction writing, and has received citations from the National Book Foundation, PEN America and the Hemingway Society. She is the author of The Walking People, Fever and Ask Again, Yes, which spent eight weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and was translated into twenty-two languages.

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