Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions

Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions, a novel by Daniel Wallace, presents the story of the life of Edward Bloom, as told and retold by his son, William. William recounts Edward’s life as Edward lays dying of an unnamed terminal illness. The truth of Edward's past has always eluded William, as his father's anecdotes tend toward the unbelievable, and he seems incapable of being serious. Using tall tales, dreams, and allusions to Greek mythology and classics, like The Odyssey, William reconstructs Edward's life, and in doing so, explores themes of mortality, fatherhood, and storytelling.

The novel jumps between the present time, during which Edward lays dying of an unnamed, incurable illness, and the past, told through a series of fabulous anecdotes, presented in chronological order, beginning with Edward's birth. As William remarks, everything Edward "did was without parallel" (16). William narrates all but one of these stories, as he's heard his father tell them many times over the course of his life. Never passing judgement or expressing disbelief, he presents them just as Edward did: “[t]rue story" (11).

In his own mythology, Edward is special from the beginning. His birth, during the "driest summer in forty years" (5) in the small town of Ashland, Alabama, brings with it a heavy rainstorm.