Author Lyn Hughes shares 'a labour of love'

Austinmer writer Lyn Hughes shares the story behind her new book

The first time I saw a whale, I was filled with astonishment, not just that something so large could launch itself bodily into the air or at the surprising sense of kinship I felt with the great creature but at the pure, unalloyed sense of joy I felt.

That first encounter, one of many, would eventually lead me to write Mr Carver’s Whale, setting me off on a thrilling whale journey from the tiny island of Pico, in the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores, to remotest Fogo Island, off the east coast of Newfoundland, and finally, far closer to home, to Eden on the south coast of New South Wales. All places of great natural beauty. Cruelly so, given their bloody history of whaling.

Set in the late 19th century, Mr Carver’s Whale is a historical novel with a contemporary edge. It begins with the arrival of a sea-chest filled with books, an unexpected gift for Antonio Carvalho, younger son of an Azorean whaling family. I found inspiration for Antonio, a pivotal character in the book, in an old black and white photograph in a whaling museum on Pico: a young boy, expression uncertain, seated at a table of grinning men, toasting the success of the whale hunt.

But perhaps my chief inspiration, in a novel which deals primarily with the complex and often vexed nature of human relationships, were the following lines from the poet Rilke’s ‘Letters to a Young Poet’ –words which leapt out at me with the same impact of that first sighting of a whale –‘It’s often the name of the crime upon which a life shatters, not the nameless and personal act itself…’

Filled to the brim with books, journeys, whales, love, ghosts, desire and death, Mr Carver’s Whale took me 10 years to research and write. A lyrical, swashbuckling tale of adventure-at-sea and romance, it was a labour of love. Which might seem odd, given its subject matter. But the novel is essentially a story of atonement and redemption, proposing as it does the possibility of personal transformation. And not just in our relationships with others, but with the natural world and the many creatures with whom we share it.

Save the date: 24 August, Lyn Hughes and Caroline Baum discuss Lyn’s new novel, Mr Carver’s Whale, at Ryan’s Hotel in Thirroul. Bookings essential, contact Collins Booksellers Thirroul, thirroul@collinsbooks.com.au or call 4267 1408.

Mr Carver’s Whale is published by HarperCollins 4th Estate. Visit www.lynhughes.com and follow @lynflock