Ethan Rutherford

The opening scenes of this novel suggest that it will be a traditional maritime adventure—maybe a little dark but reminiscent of Melville, Conrad or Forester. Nonetheless, it slowly morphs into something stranger and more elegiacal. Rutherford uses the claustrophobic setting of a ship on an extended voyage during the waning years of the whaling industry to explore larger questions that still resonate today. How much of our environment are we willing to sacrifice for short term profits? Can show more mankind’s ingenuity ever overcome nature or are we doomed to a creeping devastation? In addition to man’s hubris, the setting gives Rutherford an opportunity to explore other issues like colonialism, toxic masculinity and brutality, isolation and endurance. Also, he introduces mythical and allegorical elements to the classical nautical genre.

The third-person narrator doesn’t particularly engage with the action. Instead, he is passive and merely observational. Moreover, there is no real protagonist in the story. The ironically named captain, Arnold Lovejoy, is anything but joyful. He is estranged from his family and has recently returned from a failed whaling expedition only to take on another extended voyage. This one will be aimed at hunting in the Pacific and Arctic for the greatly diminished whales, while also returning a missing whaling captain who may have absconded with the proceeds of a lost Arctic expedition. Lovejoy seems willing to use questionable methods to please the ship’s owner and to achieve his goals.

With the exception of two young brothers, the remainder of the ship’s crew seems equally joyless. They doggedly go about the work of whaling, the brutality of which Rutherford captures in vivid detail. Many of the other principal characters seem more allegorical than real. Leander, the missing captain, is a Kurtz-like figure, disillusioned with life and with what he was required to do for his employers; Thule, the mysterious man sent along by the owner to make sure Lovejoy succeeds is definitely a loyal company man willing to stoop to anything for his boss; Eastman, a prominent member of the crew, is evil incarnate; and Old Sorrell, a strange creature—half man half bird—seems to be some kind of divine protector of the innocent and the environment. Rutherford focuses on the two young boys to provide a hint of redemption. As the least skilled members of the crew, everyone takes advantage of them in multiple ways, both mundane and malicious. If the novel has any uplifting message, however, it is through the mutual caring that the brothers have for each other.

Rutherford’s overarching mood is moral ambiguity. This evokes a sense of foreboding and unease that increases with the claustrophobic setting, the unrelenting brutality and danger, and the strangeness of the environment and events. Although effective, this approach leaves one wishing for more resolution and emotional reckoning. Rutherford’s emphasis on mood over plot also makes this a slow-paced read. Notwithstanding these flaws, the writing is sparse and lyrical with particular emphasis on the imagery of the Arctic and the unflinching descriptions of what it takes to extract profit from the environment. show less

Ethan Rutherfords collection explores family at every conceivable level human and non-human and the natural world and then they all cross over. Babies with gills and foxes raising children and all by way of the fable/fairy tale. The stories push up against having a 'point'. They are stories for the sake of telling a tale, family tales. Many of which do not have a 'point' or 'lesson' but in the midst of the chaos and madness these stories inhabit it is obvious that this is the point. show more Rutherford takes the chaos and confronts the reader with the horror in the chaos of life - of family life. The themes of family and nature and chaos and real-horrors of life is ever prescient now. These stories serve as a strange reflection on the deep past, the now, and the future - all at once. show less

These are unsettling stories, some featuring the disenfranchised, some historical in nature (or both), and some about people with comfortable lives, at least until bad things happen to them. Ethan Rutherford also likes to tell nautical tales where disaster is pre-ordained.

In the title story a demoralized yet eager Confederate States of America submarine crew attempts to strike a blow for the confederacy during a war that is all but lost. ”We sat back, dumfounded, and familiarized ourselves show more with new definitions of inadequacy.”

“Camp Winnesaka” captures the black humor of George Saunders in a summer camp gone amok. “People – cynics – will tell you facts are essential. But facts can be misleading.”
In the uncomfortable “John, For Christmas” a manipulative adult son makes his parent’s life one of constant unease.

In “A Mugging” the humiliation of the act drives a wedge between an otherwise solid couple. “Dirwhals!” is the narrative of a futuristic whale-hunting expedition, complete with radical environmentalists, in a world where the Gulf of Mexico is now a desert and steel shipper-tanks troll the dry sand hunting Dirwhals as a source of energy. show less

Rutherford collects together short stories about family and the connections between people. The stories are invariably *weird* but they feel weighty and layered. The prose is dreamlike, with an eye towards the small things we observe. Each left me a little bit off-centered and trying to put together the pieces, to know what it meant to me. Overall, I greatly enjoyed it since these types of stories are what my tastes drift towards naturally.