- Fathoms: The World in the Whale, by Rebecca Giggs. Scribe. $35.
If there was ever a book that was hotly anticipated, Fathoms is certainly it.
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Having been acquired by Scribe Australia several years ago, and then becoming the subject of a bidding war that earned author Rebecca Giggs a six-figure advance from US giants Simon & Schuster, it's fair to say that there has been a bit of pressure for this book to see the light of day.
To have it launched during the Covid-19 lockdown is bittersweet, because it's exactly the kind of book that deserves to be celebrated and discussed in person at book launches across the country.
Fathoms is Giggs' debut book, and explores the human connection to whales - what it is that fascinates us and captures our imaginations and emotions about these huge underwater mammals.
From hunting and killing whales through to the obsession with whale-related kitsch artefacts, Giggs investigates the animals and what they reflect back to us about human nature.
The book begins with Giggs observing a beached whale in Perth WA, her hometown, in 2016.
Despite the best efforts of rescue teams and volunteers, it becomes clear quite quickly that the whale is doomed to die.
What follows is agonised waiting of days as the beast groans and struggles in the shallows, slowly dying - a process that Giggs describes and explains in visceral detail.
It's this detail, and the ability Giggs demonstrates to conjure up images of the deepest parts of the ocean and the strangest corners of human hearts that is at the core of this book.
It's what makes the pages echo in the reader's mind long after the last page is consumed.
Giggs takes us on a journey through the history of whaling across different continents, to our slow destruction of the whale's natural environment thanks to man-made climate change, and into her own philosophical journey of understanding how nature (and the vast mysteries it contains) influences our understanding of ourselves and the world we occupy.
If that sounds like a lot to cover, it is - and in large part Giggs navigates this complexity in her thesis well, with meticulous research and stunning prose.
At times the clarity of the book wavers, and the density of the content can become difficult to follow, but this is far outweighed by the overall immersion Fathoms provides into its subject matter.
As far as nature and science writing goes, Fathoms certainly demonstrates that Giggs is very much just getting started, and that we have much more to expect from her unique, introspective and poetic style of non-fiction.