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20th Century Studios; Getty Images; MH Illustration/Jason Speakman

IN DANIEL KRAUS’S novel Whalefall , a teenage scuba diver is swallowed alive by a sperm whale in pursuit of a giant squid. While that might seem like a farfetched tale, reminiscent of Jonah being swallowed up by a whale in the bible, it actually happens more than you think. In 2025, a kayaker was sucked up by a whale near Chile and in 2021, a lobster fisherman was swallowed while diving to check his traps near Provincetown, Mass. Both survived, having been rather quickly spit back up by their respective seabound captors, but it begs the important question: Is Whalefall ’s premise more of a cautionary tale than it is a total fantasy?

That’s certainly one of the questions the creators of Whalefall ’s new cinematic adaptation want viewers to ask themselves.…