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An authentic portrait of gay love in small-town Britain: The Whale Tattoo reviewed

16 July 2022

9:00 AM

16 July 2022

9:00 AM

The Whale Tattoo Jon Ransom

Muswell Press, pp.240, 9.99

In Jon Ransom’s debut novel, water seeps into the crevices between waking and dreaming, flooding the narrator Joe’s consciousness. Set in the liminal landscape of Norfolk’s tidal wetlands, it’s an urgent, roiling tale of gay love, suppressed traumas and lives cut short. A working-class writer with no formal education, Norfolk-raised Ransom wrote the first draft on his phone on a bus.

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