Book Review | From The Belly by Emmett Nahil

The whaling vessel Merciful has made its strangest catch — they have found a man inside a whale. Sailor Isaiah Chase is tasked with keeping the man alive. As their relationship grows, a series of accidents and deaths befall the ship’s crew. Prophetic dreams plague Isaiah, and the crew is under extreme pressure from their demanding captain. He must confront the sea’s vengeance and choose between a new, strange love and the ship’s fate.

When the man was cut from the belly of the whale, he was as soft and blood-mottled as a stillborn calf. Isaiah watched from the gunwales of the whaleship Merciful as Álvarez reached down with his pike and scored away at the flesh, and the body fell from the inner lining of the creature’s muscled stomach and onto the water with nothing more than a muted splash, buoyed to float by the grease and viscera coating the wave caps.

From The Belly is a lush, surreal aquatic nightmare with an unexpectedly tender relationship at the heart of it. I love sea horror and this book takes me deep inside the ship’s claustrophobic, crowded spaces. The amount of detail is astonishing, making me feel like I was part of the crew. I could almost feel the damp wooden body of the ship, the smell of whale blood, and the darkness of the ship’s compartments. They slowly succumb to something that rots them from within. But the horror isn’t just what’s in their bodies — it’s also the capitalistic, greedy system that forces the sailors to sail and kill and risk their lives to clear their debts.

Isaiah’s compassion serves him in ways he doesn’t expect. He has the gift of “seeing”, which he hides for fear of being ostracized. His nightmares are disturbing, haunting him even when he awakes. To Isaiah’s surprise, the enigmatic man from the whale offers something seductive to him. Their connection is bewitching and agonizing, overshadowed by pressure from the crew and their unhinged captain in a relentless pursuit of whale oil. While their relationship pulled my attention, I also became invested in the fates of the other crew members. Yet losses pile up, distrust boils over, and the looming sea threatens to sweep their ship, culminating in a harrowing ending. I could have read 100 more pages of this world and I was sorry to see it end.

From The Belly is a fantastic aquatic horror to read from the safety of the beach this summer!

I received an advanced reading copy from the publisher for review purposes.

About the author: Emmett Nahil

Photo by Torsten Dederichs