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Book Reviewed by: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.
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).
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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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."
