What is the main conflict in Songs of the Humpback Whale by Jodi Picoult?

Songs of the Humpback Whale: A Novel in Five Voices, published in 1992, was Jodi Picoult's first novel. Set in 1990, the story spans the journey of three family members from San Diego, California to Stow, Massachusetts as they discover the reasons their family broke apart and the need for each other that drives them back together. Eminent marine biologist Oliver Jones understands whales better than he understands how to be a father and husband and so he uses his whale-tracking skills to track his wife and child across the country after they leave. Jane Lipton Jones, his wife, is a woman in search of herself after an abusive childhood and a verbally abusive marriage. Daughter Rebecca Jones at fifteen has survived a plane crash, a distant father, and an unhappy mother. She longs for the love she cannot find at home.