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A True Story of Survival and Obsession Among America's Great White Sharks
by Susan Casey
Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Jun 2005, 304 pages
Paperback:
May 2006, 304 pages
Book Reviewed by:
BookBrowse Review Team
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A journalist's
obsession brings her to a remote island off the California coast, home
to the world's most mysterious and fearsome predators -- and the
strange band of surfer-scientists who follow them.
Susan Casey was in her living room when she first saw the great
white sharks of the Farallon Islands, their dark fins swirling around
a small motorboat in a documentary. These sharks were the alphas among
alphas, some longer than twenty feet, and there were too many to
count; even more incredible, this congregation was taking place just
twenty-seven miles off the coast of San Francisco.
In a matter of months, Casey was being hoisted out of the early-winter
swells on a crane, up a cliff face to the barren surface of Southeast
Farallon Island -- dubbed by sailors in the 1850s the "devil's teeth."
There she joined Scot Anderson and Peter Pyle, the two biologists who
bunk down during shark season each fall in the island's one habitable
building, a haunted, 135-year-old house spackled with lichen and gull
guano. Two days later, she got her first glimpse of the famous,
terrifying jaws up close and she was instantly hooked; her fascination
soon yielded to obsession -- and an invitation to return for a full
season. But as Casey readied herself for the eight-week stint, she had
no way of preparing for what she would find among the dangerous,
forgotten islands that have banished every campaign for civilization
in the past two hundred years.
The Devil's Teeth is a vivid dispatch from an otherworldly
outpost, a story of crossing the boundary between society and an
untamed place where humans are neither wanted nor needed.
Peter's weather prediction held. As the light came up and I stepped
outside I saw that the fog had dissolved, the ocean was unveiled,
and the jagged contours of another Farallon, Saddle Rock, were
crisply in focus for the first time since my arrival. Saddle Rock
reared out of the water only two hundred yards southeast of the main
island, and from certain angles it looked exactly like a dorsal fin.
Cormorants bunched along its edges, forming an elegant black picket
fence. It marked the divide between Mirounga Bay (where the Rat Pack
hunted) and Shubrick Point (where the Sisterhood reigned). Many an
elephant seal head had been lost in its shadow.
Scot and Peter and I drank our coffee on the front steps, looking
out at the water glimmering in the early light. There was a feathery
wind and a handful of ...
It's difficult to decide who is the most compelling contender for the role of "star" in Casey's book. Is it the sharks, the islands, or the surfer-scientists who choose to live their lives studying the sharks in this extraordinary place? Or perhaps it's the one remaining sea-urchin diver who still works the area, elbowing sharks out of the way as he goes about his business! All in all, a gripping read (pun intended!) and highly recommended!..continued
Full Review
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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
Linda Greenlaw, author of The Hungry Ocean
I read Susan Casey's book in a feeding frenzy, satisfying my curiosity while fueling my fascination with sharks. A thoroughly researched and well-written piece of literature that raises hairs as well as tickling funny bones, The Devil's Teeth artfully reveals what lurks in the shadows of the mysterious great white and the people obsessed with them. The true triumph of the book, though, is in Casey's transcendence of mere journalism - she's clearly embraced by the world of which she writes. Mary Roach, author of Stiff
Susan Casey could write about guppies, and I'd want to read her book. I devoured this book like a shark. Robert Kurson, author of Shadow Divers
In delivering us to the Farallon Islands, and then into the souls of the magnificent Great White Sharks that populate its waters, Susan Casey has really delivered us into the DNA of our own beings. The Devil's Teeth is more than a shark story; it is an account of our instincts, our appetites, even our futures, all beautifully told by a writer compelled to know.Did you know?....
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