Hannah Greendale (Hello, Bookworm)'s Reviews > Rush Oh!

Historical romance crafted with heart and humor.💙

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It is 1908, and nineteen-year-old Mary Davidson must care for her siblings in the wake of her mother's death and support her father's rowdy whaling crew in the midst of the bleakest whaling season in the history of New South Wales. When a mysterious and handsome stranger arrives to join her father's crew, Mary must also navigate the tumultuous desires of her heart.

Rush Oh! gives a well-researched, fascinating account of whaling practices in the port town of Eden, off the coast of Australia. From the 1840s to the 1930s, pods of Killer whales assisted hunters by herding whales into the bay and bullying them into position for men to make a killing blow. In exchange for their aid, hunters gave the Killer whales first shot at feeding off the body while it sank to the bottom of the ocean. Twenty-four hours later, once the carcass had bloated with gas and risen to the surface, the men rowed out and collected the body, towing it back inland to dismember for profit.

The inexperienced oarsmen reared back; their instinct was to flee, but unable to flee, they froze and stared at the sight before them. It was difficult to make sense of what they were seeing. It was huge, unmistakably, though most of its mass was concealed underwater; gray-black in color with a flat broad back. [. . .] It's vast coal-scuttle mouth curved downwards, and at one end of this a tiny eye, rheumy like an old man's, gazed up at them. It was grotesque and prehistoric in appearance, yet not unfriendly.



In terms of story, Rush Oh! delicately balances feminine woes with masculine pursuits, as its divided evenly between Mary's interest in the enigmatic John Beck and tales of her father's crew braving the open sea to hunt for whales.

Every whale hunt evokes a rush of excitement and the thrill of anticipation. These perilous pursuits are rendered with heart-stopping detail. One cannot help but cheer the hunters on, knowing full well their dire need for a good catch.

I awoke suddenly to hear a distant but determined smack! It was a Killer whale flop-tailing, surely? Smack! There it was again, and no doubt about it this time. I jumped out of bed and hurried out to the veranda - my father was running stiff-legged down to the sleeping huts, shouting, "Rush oh! Get up, boys! Rush oh!"

But the hunts also elicit a sense of being conflicted. As the whales thrash and fight for their lives, one cannot hope but wish for the magnificent creatures to break free and return to the safe depths of the ocean.

Nonetheless, this book is charming and unexpectedly funny:

He had none of the dismal, barnacled gray of the humpback: no, he was a portly and dapper fish in white tie and dinner jacket. How homely and dull humpbacks were in comparison, I thought to myself. [. . .] Sometimes, at night, when we heard the anguished cow-like moan of the humpback, my sister Louisa would say: "Listen! A humpback has just seen it's own reflection," which set the younger one's giggling.

Rush Oh! was penned in the modern age but reads like a classic.

Whenever I think of this story, I can almost see my father standing there atop the dead whale, a lean and wiry figure, yet somehow heroic with his bloody hand and his marker buoys and boathook, the sun setting behind him and the Killer whales circling and calling to one another with their high pitched twittering.