Overview

The epic story of the world's last subsistence whalers At a time when global change has eradicated thousands of unique cultures, The Last Whalers tells the stunning inside story of the Lamalerans, an ancient tribe of 1,500 hunter-gatherers who live on a volcanic island so remote it is known by other Indonesians as The Land Left Behind. They have survived for centuries by taking whales with bamboo harpoons, but now are being pushed toward collapse by the encroachment of the modern world. Award-winning journalist Doug Bock Clark, who lived with the Lamalerans across three years, weaves together their stories with novelistic flair to usher us inside this hidden drama. Jon, an orphaned apprentice whaler, strives to earn his harpoon and feed his ailing grandparents. Ika, Jon's indomitable younger sister, struggles to forge a modern life in a tradition-bound culture and realize a star-crossed love. Ignatius, a legendary harpooner entering retirement, labors to hand down the Ways of the Ancestors to his son, Ben, who would rather become a DJ in the distant tourist mecca of Bali. With brilliant, breathtaking prose and empathetic, fast-paced storytelling, Clark details how the fragile dreams of one of the world's dwindling indigenous peoples are colliding with the irresistible upheavals of our rapidly transforming world, and delivers to us a group of families we will never forget.

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9781549149672

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Reviews

A monumental achievement. With luminous writing and expert reporting, Doug Bock Clark provides a rare view into our shared human past. -- Mitchell Zuckoff, #1 New York Times bestselling author

[An] immersive, densely reported, and altogether remarkable book...[with] the texture and coloring of a first-rate novel. -- New York Times Book Review Clark has a graceful, almost poetic writing style, and his vivid portrait of the Lamalerans and their way of life evokes in the reader a stirring image of a lost world, an ancient society that has somehow stayed virtually untouched by the march of time...until now. -- Booklist A spectacular and deeply empathetic attempt to understand a vanishing world...[a] magnificent book. -- Sebastian Junger, New York Times bestselling author A monumental achievement. With luminous writing and expert reporting, Doug Bock Clark provides a rare view into our shared human past. -- Mitchell Zuckoff, #1 New York Times bestselling author

Clark has a graceful, almost poetic writing style, and his vivid portrait of the Lamalerans and their way of life evokes in the reader a stirring image of a lost world, an ancient society that has somehow stayed virtually untouched by the march of time...until now. -- Booklist [An] immersive, densely reported, and altogether remarkable book...[with] the texture and coloring of a first-rate novel. -- New York Times Book Review A spectacular and deeply empathetic attempt to understand a vanishing world...[a] magnificent book. -- Sebastian Junger, New York Times bestselling author A monumental achievement. With luminous writing and expert reporting, Doug Bock Clark provides a rare view into our shared human past. -- Mitchell Zuckoff, #1 New York Times bestselling author

"[An] immersive, densely reported, and altogether remarkable book...[with] the texture and coloring of a first-rate novel. -- ""New York Times Book Review"" A spectacular and deeply empathetic attempt to understand a vanishing world...[a] magnificent book. -- ""Sebastian Junger, New York Times bestselling author"" Clark has a graceful, almost poetic writing style, and his vivid portrait of the Lamalerans and their way of life evokes in the reader a stirring image of a lost world, an ancient society that has somehow stayed virtually untouched by the march of time...until now. -- ""Booklist"" A monumental achievement. With luminous writing and expert reporting, Doug Bock Clark provides a rare view into our shared human past. -- ""Mitchell Zuckoff, #1 New York Times bestselling author"""

A monumental achievement. With luminous writing and expert reporting, Doug Bock Clark provides a rare view into our shared human past. -- Mitchell Zuckoff, #1 New York Times bestselling author A spectacular and deeply empathetic attempt to understand a vanishing world...[a] magnificent book. -- Sebastian Junger, New York Times bestselling author [An] immersive, densely reported, and altogether remarkable book...[with] the texture and coloring of a first-rate novel. -- New York Times Book Review Clark has a graceful, almost poetic writing style, and his vivid portrait of the Lamalerans and their way of life evokes in the reader a stirring image of a lost world, an ancient society that has somehow stayed virtually untouched by the march of time...until now. -- Booklist

Author Information

Doug Bock Clark is a writer whose articles have appeared or are forthcoming in the New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, National Geographic, GQ, Wired, Rolling Stone, The New Republic, and elsewhere. He won the 2017 Reporting Award, was a finalist for the 2016 Mirror Award, and has been awarded two Fulbright Fellowships, a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, and an 11th Hour Food and Farming Fellowship. Clark has been interviewed about his work on CNN, BBC, NPR, and ABC's 20/20. He is a Visiting Scholar at New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. Jay Snyder is a voice actor, voice director, and script adapter who studied acting at the Julliard School in New York City. He is best known as the voice of Yugi Muto from the Japanese manga television series, Yu-Gi-Oh! His audiobook narrations have earned three AudioFile Earphones Awards, and he was a finalist for the Audie Award for Best Fiction Narration in 2015.

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