Not Forgetting The Whale is a 2015 dystopian novel by John Ironmonger. Joe Haak, a young mathematician who worked for an investment banking company, is one day found naked at the shore of the quaint coastal town of St. Piran. Its citizens save him and quickly include him into the community, as Joe doesn't seem to be too keen to leave. It is later told that Joe is a mathematician working as an analyst for a short trader department, where he programmed his prediction software, Cassie. Once his software predicts the imminent end of the world due to an oil crisis and a new flu strain, he starts hoarding food, not only for himself but for the entire village that so openly invited him to their midst, to survive the upcoming disaster.
This novel provides examples of:
- All Up to You: Joe and his AI "Cassie" are the only ones to know about the upcoming calamity, so he is the only one who can prepare for it.
- Animal Metaphor: The Whale. Whales are often associated with Life and Death, and the whale of the story shows both possible outcomes of an unexpected situation. The first time it strands and is helpless, it is saved; The second time, it dies.
- Animal Motifs: The Whale that the novel is named after. It strikes the plot by saving Joe from dying and is stranded twice, once he can be saved.
- Author Avatar: Aminata was born in Africa to an African father and a Cornwallian mother, just like the author John Ironmonger.
- Bittersweet Ending: The flu spares St. Piran and nobody starves, but Joe leaves the village and all his friends, possibly forever, and the whale is dead.
- Central Theme: The behaviors of people in an age of catastrophe.
- Contamination Situation: Joe and Alvin Hocking bring the infected and highly contagious Janie Coverdale to the church tower before her death, therefore being at the risk of being infected themselves. Joe catches the flu and almost dies from it.
- Crazy-Prepared: In the eye of the (potentially) upcoming crisis, Joe doesn't simply hoard food for himself, but for the entire village of 308 people - we're talking about tons of food and hygiene articles stored. They even made it to national TV.
- Deconstructed Character Archetype: Joe Haak (and by extension, his boss) first come across as a typical Morally Bankrupt Banker who makes a living by betting on falling assets of companies, dooming their employees and shareholders in the process. As the story progresses, this is more and more deconstructed.
- Did Not Get the Girl: All the book there is tension between Joe and Polly Hocking, but she does not leave her husband and rejects Joe.
- Didn't Think This Through: During their quarantine together in the church tower, Reverend Alvin Hocking blames Joe for not having thought his food hoarding plan through. After all, a village full of farmers and fishermen can very well be self-sufficient.
- Hard Truth Aesop: Lew Kaufmann delivers one when he compares modern society to the Rapanui from Easter Island. According to him, they used their main resource wood so much that the whole island became devoid of trees. This eventually caused the Rapanui to die out. Joe's boss compares this to modern society's dependency on oil.
- For Want Of A Nail: The short traders and Joe's forecasting AI "Cassie" exploit this trope. An example from chapter 8: A storm disturbed the banana harvest in the Bahamas, which lowers the profit of the Canadian banana vendor, who then doesn't buy new ships from a Korean boatyard, who then doesn't take over an Estonian steel manufacturer. Therefore, the traders "short Estonian steel" due to the tropical storm.
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Harsher in Hindsight: The novel was released in 2015, a mere four years before the world was indeed hit by a global pandemic of disastrous extent. Even worse: Joe describes how we should fear the flu and not "viruses like SARS". - Humans Are Bastards: Deconstructed. The first two parts of the book revolve around the assumption that humans will attack one another as soon as a crisis happens. The third part shows that not only in St. Piran but everywhere in the UK, people have helped each other.
- The Immodest Orgasm: Aminata, who according to various townspeople is so loud in bed that the whole town could hear her.
- Just Before the End: Lew Kaufmann believes that the end is imminent, and acts accordingly. Joe later follows after he reads Cassie's predictions.
- Lockdown: Not ordered by the (dysfunctional) government, but the citizens of St. Piran themselves decide to lock themselves from the rest of the world once the Flu hits Cornwall.
- No Antagonist: Except for the flu itself, there is no truly evil character.
- No Bisexuals: Lampshaded near the end by Jeremy.
- "Being gay is hard enough in a town like St. Piran, how long do you think it would have taken to explain the concept of bisexuality?"
- One-Drop Rule: Aminata is consistently referred to as "African" or "from Senegal". Close to the end, it is revealed that her mother is actually from Cornwall.
- Philosophical Novel: The novel deals heavily with various philosophic and religious schools revolving around the question of how humans are acting in an age of calamity.
- The Plague: The world is hit by a flu strain that kills up to 20 % of people who are infected with it, which quickly develops into a pandemic.
- Plague Episode: Chapter 24 describes Joe's symptoms after getting the flu in much detail.
- Police Are Useless: Lampshaded by Jeremy Melon.
- 'When was the last time that a policeperson came to St. Piran?'
- Port Town: The coastal village of St. Piran is the main setting of the novel. It is so remote and isolated that Joe uses it as his Runaway Hideaway.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Reverend Alvin Hocking gives one to Joe when they are isolated together in the church tower, saying the problem with "people like him" is that they think money can solve everything.
- Shout-Out:
- To the TV show Red Dwarf: Every society is but three full meals away from anarchy.
- In a part of the book, Joe and his boss discuss the Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes and its implications for society.
- Signature Scent: Elizabeth Brooks, who everyone describes as "Smelling like fish".
- Skinny Dipping: The novel starts with Joe being found naked and unconscious at the beach of St. Piran. It is later revealed that the night before he had felt a strong urge to go swimming naked in the Atlantic.
- Sleeping with the Boss: In the backstory, Joe had a one-time sexual encounter with his supervisor Janie Coverdale in her office.
