The Whale Tattoo

Product Information

Ransom’s short stories have appeared in SAND Journal, Foglifter Press and FIVE:2:ONE, amongst others.

And I blame the blurb - 'Three men bound together in a blistering story that spans 30 years, from 1953 into the 1980s and the AIDS epidemic' - which sadly didn't even cover up half of what this premise promised to depict. That restlessness that keeps you up all night, when the moon is as bright as a dinner plate licked clean, won’t last for ever. In their different ways, both of this year’s winning books expand our understanding of what LGBTQ+ literature can and should be,” said Paul Burston, prize founder and chair of judges for both categories.Kit de Waal: Scenes from an Unpredictable Childhood Kit de Waal’s influence across contemporary British literature is so broad as to be almost immeasurable. Joe has fallen into the compulsory life of a seaman that traps so many like him in his small coastal town.

The roundabout is populated by typical garish painted horses with a single horse painted grey The author uses this as a metaphor for the main characters difference being an overtly camp homosexual man. Other titles shortlisted alongside Ransom’s were None of the Above by Travis Alabanza, Rising of the Black Sheep by Livia Kojo Alour, The New Life by Tom Crewe, A Visible Man by Edward Enninful and Love from the Pink Palace by Jill Nalder. And grief is central to the narrative to the extent that Joe’s mental health is unbalanced and yet perfectly understandable.Much like the surface of the river that keeps mocking the protagonist, there’s an ominous tenor behind every word; a beauty that shocks.

Joe is crude, with his smoking and drinking and rough way of speaking but is the most rounded and believable character I have read in a long time.It’s Ransom’s raw reflection on life, his recognition of the brutality that transforms moments of passing rapture into something dreamy that leaves the reader entranced’. The casual queerness was nice but wasn’t a fan of the casual homophobia and the character constantly vomiting everywhere. Neatly balancing the forward momentum of the story and the piece-by-piece exploration of a man who barely knows himself, The Whale Tattoo places you inside Joe’s mind and the turmoil therein.

As the novel’s first-person narrator, Joe’s story is also told in a non-linear fashion perfectly consistent with the young man’s befuddled nature. Amidst cruel actions and even crueler taunts, Eli tries to find a balance to his life -wrestling with his own inner desires to try and make himself feel valued - both as a man and for someone to love him as he is. For now, the memory of this story has galloped through my head as quickly as it raced through it's storyline.but once I had the pace of it added to the air of, hm, not confusion but something like it, that Eli sees the world through. But she can't help him, she drowned two years earlier, even though he still talks to her as if she never went away. Unforgettable characters abound, and Ransom achieves an incredible sense of place while keeping you in the dark in terms of where it actually is. You’re never able to really build a picture of them or any real connection to them or their stories which for me is a must for a good book.