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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Sep 2005, 272 pages
Paperback:
Apr 2006, 272 pages
Book Reviewed by:
BookBrowse Review Team
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A mesmerizing, allegorical, and beautifully wrought first novel about one boy's wonder with the sea during the summer that will change his life, and the lives around him.
One moonlit night, thirteen-year-old Miles O'Malley slips out of his house,
packs up his kayak and goes exploring on the flats of Puget Sound. But what
begins as an ordinary hunt for starfish, snails, and clams is soon transformed
by an astonishing sight: a beached giant squid. As the first person to ever
see a giant squid alive, the speed-reading Rachel Carson-obsessed insomniac
instantly becomes a local curiosity. When he later finds a rare deepwater fish
in the tidal waters by his home, and saves a dog from drowning, he is hailed
as a prophet. The media hovers and everyone wants to hear what Miles has to
say.
But Miles is really just a teenager on the verge of growing up, infatuated
with the girl next door, worried that his bickering parents will divorce, and
fearful that everything, even the bay he loves, is shifting away from him.
While the sea continues to offer up discoveries from its mysterious depths,
Miles struggles to deal with the difficulties that attend the equally
mysterious process of growing up. In this mesmerizing, beautifully wrought
first novel, we witness the dramatic sea change for both Miles and the
coastline that he adores over the course of a summer - one that will culminate
with the highest tide in fifty years.
Chapter 1
I learned early on that if you tell people what you see at low tide they'll think you're exaggerating
or lying when you're
actually just explaining strange and wonderful things
as clearly as you can. Most of the time I understated what I saw because I
couldn't find words powerful enough, but that's the nature of
marine life and the inland bays I grew up on. You'd have to be scientist,
a poet and a comedian to hope to describe it all accurately, and even then you'd often fall
short. The truth is I
sometimes lied about where or when I saw things, but take that
little misdirection away and I saw everything I said I saw and more.
Most people realize the sea covers two thirds of the planet, but
few take the time to understand even a gallon of it. Watch what
happens when you try to explain something as basic as the tides,
that the suction of the moon and the sun creates a bulge across the
ocean that turns into a...
This is definitely a book to browse if you enjoy discovering new authors and especially if you find yourself drawn to the sea and all that lives in it...continued
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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
Katherine Dunn, author of Geek Love
The Highest Tide is a plunge into sustained and intelligent
wonder. Jim Lynch creates a richly tumultuous world on a microcosmic stage. His
characters and events are as complex and surprising as the sea that surrounds
them. He's got me re-reading Rachel Carson and itching for tide pools of my
own." Martha McPhee, author of Gorgeous Lies
Jim Lynch has written a breathtakingly beautiful first novel. At its core is a fabulous metaphor, rising from the ocean to
wrap around his painful story with all the brilliance and mystery of life. That is a big statement. Lynch can carry its weight and then some. Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
In The Highest Tide, Jim Lynch has written a masterful first novel,
gracefully weaving together the wonders of the sea and the wonders of our
humanity. Seeing the world through the eyes of his narrator, Miles O'Malley, is
to see the world with a rapturous freshness that is, it seems to me, the essence
of a fine book. This is an exciting debut. I can't wait to see what Jim Lynch
does next.Jim Lynch has won national journalism awards and published short fiction in literary magazines, and spent four years as the Puget Sound reporter for the Oregonian. A Washington State native, Lynch currently writes and sails from his home in Olympia, where he lives with his wife and daughter. The Highest Tide is his first novel.
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