A Killer Whale Love Story
IF YOUR WERE ALIVE between 1996 and 1998, and especially if you spent any of those years in the Pacific Northwest, you may remember Keiko, the wild-caught killer whale star of the hit movie Free Willy. In failing health after eighteen years in a small, hot pool at an amusement park in Mexico City, Keiko was transported to a facility built exclusively for him at the Oregon Coast Aquarium. From the minute he arrived to the moment he left two years later, the international press reported almost daily on some achievement, antic, or controversy coming out of the project to rehabilitate and then release him back to the wild. He was a media sensation.
As the killer whale’s full-time press secretary, I witnessed his amazing recovery at the hands of a small group of men and women who spent hours each day swimming with him in a pool so cold that hypothermia was always a danger. Day in and day out, in all kinds of weather—most of it bad—these dedicated people kept him company for up to eighteen hours a day, inventing regimens, games, and toys to challenge his mind and body. By the time he left Oregon for Iceland, Keiko was a masterpiece of buff muscle and fierce vitality. He departed as he had arrived, in a cloud of controversy over the morality of keeping whales and dolphins in captivity.
As it turned out, Keiko would be my only killer whale, or at least my only real one—I took down my PR shingle for good a few months after his departure. Exhausted from the intensity of the previous two years, I tried to sort out the experience by doing what I always do—I wrote about it, creating scores of vignettes loosely based on the project’s defining moments, and especially on Keiko as I’d come to know him—sly, silly, charismatic, winsome, affectionate, and, most of all, resilient.
Fast-forward to summer 2010, after the release of my fourth book, Seeing Stars, a novel about child actors in Hollywood. My editor and agent proposed that I next write a sequel to my third and most successful novel, Hannah’s Dream. Always one for a challenge, I cast around for a meaningful story that would take me back to Bladenham, Washington, its tiny Max L. Biedelman Zoo, and the characters I and my readers had come to love.
After lots of false starts I decided to retool those rough vignettes I’d written so long ago, giving the fictional Max L. Biedelman Zoo and killer whale Friday some of Keiko’s real-world qualities and dilemmas. I also decided to enlarge the circle of characters I’d introduced in Hannah’s Dream with brand-new characters who would do much of this book’s heavy lifting: Ivy Levy, Truman Levy’s aunt and eccentric heiress; Julio Iglesias, Ivy’s passive-aggressive Chihuahua; Libertine Adagio, a gentle little animal psychic; and Gabriel Jump, maverick and marine mammal rehabber.
As I once again started from scratch, I finally felt I was headed in the right direction—in fact, I was surprised at the ease with which I was able to move between the fictional and the actual. In my fictional world, as in the actual one, the morality of keeping whales and dolphins captive was polarizing; in my fictional world, as in the actual one, both sides believed absolutely in the rightness of their convictions and in the actions by which they expressed them. In the fictional world, as in the actual one, supremely dedicated people worked tirelessly to enrich the life of an animal unable to do so on his own behalf.
As with Hannah’s Dream, it is my hope that readers will recognize that Friday’s Harbor is, at its core, a love story.
Reading Group Guide
1. As the story goes, nobody in Bogotá knows or remembers how Friday got his name—Viernes. According to the oft-quoted nursery rhyme, “Friday’s child is loving and giving.” What does Friday end up giving to the other characters in the novel?
2. Can Libertine really exchange thoughts with animals? It’s been said that animals can sense storms and other natural disasters before they happen, and can even tell when we humans are sick. Do you think humans and animals can communicate? On what level?
3. What do you think is the difference between the sixth sense Gabriel has for animals, the psychic bond that Libertine shares with animals, and the deep friendship that Sam develops with animals? With whom do you relate most closely?
4. Neva says it best: Gabriel is an enigma. To some he may even seem to be a contradiction. He has such a deep, abiding love for marine mammals, and yet he has captured more than forty whales, including calves. How do you think he reconciles his love of animals with his aiding in their captivity?
5. When Neva asks Libertine if she ever wishes she couldn’t sense animals, Libertine replies, “All the time.” Why do you think this is? What would cause her to want to give up her gift?
6. Libertine and Ivy could not be more different in their temperaments, backgrounds, and beliefs. And yet they form a very important friendship. How is it that they can find common ground?
7. Friday has a happy life in Bladenham—much better than it was before—but he is alone in the sense that there are no other killer whales around him. How does the theme of loneliness pervade the other characters’ personal narratives?
8. Neva is known as the easygoing free spirit, and Truman is the sensible (sometimes uptight) one in their relationship. In what ways do you think having Friday around—and eventually swimming with him—has been good for Truman? Taking Friday in was a big risk. Was it the right choice?
9. One of the VIPs who visit Friday is an aging musician who is well past his prime. Could this be a metaphor? Why is this moment so emotional for all of those who bear witness?
10. Juan’s rescue was a total surprise that brought many unexpected lessons. What did each of the characters learn from Juan’s plight and eventual adoption?