Whale Hunter in Vietnam

People of the Whale, Linda Hogan, 2008

Pacific Native American

A small west coast native American tribe loses its way when they are no longer able to hunt the whale. Young men who would have traditionally learned whale hunting volunteer for Vietnam. Thomas leaves his pregnant “wife” Ruth behind. Ruth moves to a large Trophy fishing boat she inherited and becomes an expert at the sea and fishing.

Trophy Fishing Boat

Their son, that Ruth names Marco Polo in the hopes that he will grow up to explore the larger world outside the reserve, becomes obsessed with the ways of the whale and, as a teenager, moves to the small island where the elder keepers of tribal tradition live.

Pacific Traditional Fishermen

Thomas’s platoon is dropped outside the war zone, maybe in Cambodia among the Hmong people. All are presumed lost and Thomas’ dog tags are recovered. His name is put on the Vietnam War Memorial Wall. But Thomas is alive and has saved a small group of Hmong villagers who in turn hide and protect him. He physically can pass for Hmong as long as he doesn’t talk. He stays with them for years, learning to cultivate rice. He fathers a daughter, Lin.

Hmong People

The Americans finally arrive to locate MIA soldiers and Thomas is given an honorable discharge and returned to America without Lin. Unable to return to his reserve because of his war experiences, he stays in San Francisco working odd jobs. When news arrives that his tribe is about to go on a whale hunt (sponsored by the Japanese), Thomas returns to the reserve to join the hunt being led by his son Marco that he has never met.

Vietnam War Memorial The Wall

Lin loses her village after the war, finally ending up in Saigon, now called Ho Chi Minh City, where she makes herself useful on a small street of shops and is finally accepted as an assistant in a flower shop. She already knows several languages including her father’s English and she studies in the evenings. She starts work in an office trying to locate and reconnect people lost in the war. She determines to locate her father, knowing the reservation he is from.

Ho Chi Minh City

The novel follows the separate lives of Ruth, Thomas, Marco, and Lin and moves back and forth from the reserve to Vietnam. Hogan’s writing is sparse, bordering on magical realism in some elements.