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| The Highest Tide: A Novel | 
| Author: Jim Lynch
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Category: Book
List Price: $23.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  58 reviews
Sales Rank: 72532
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 6 x 1.1
ISBN: 1582346054
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9781582346052
ASIN: 1582346054
Publication Date: September 8, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com
Miles O'Malley, 13-year-old insomniac, naturalist, worshipper of Rachel Carson, and dweller on the mud flats of Skookumchuck Bay, at the South end of Puget Sound near Olympia, Washington, is the irresistible center of The Highest Tide. He says, "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" and "People usually take decades to sort out their view of the universe, if they bother to sort at all. I did my sorting during one freakish summer in which I was ambushed by science, fame and suggestions of the divine." And what a summer he has! Miles, who is licensed to collect marine specimens for money, slips into his kayak late one night when he can't sleep and begins his exploratory rounds. What he sees is not the usual collectibles. He hears a deep exhale, a sound of release, and comes eye to eye with a giant squid. But, there are no giant squid in Puget Sound or anywhere around it--and when they are seen by humans, they are always dead. His discovery is confirmed by Professor Kramer, a local biologist and Miles's friend. Television cameras arrive, everyone wants to interview this small-for-his-age but very smart boy and the events of the summer begin to unfold. Jim Lynch has an ability to tell a tale that glows on every page. He knows everything that lives in or near the water by name and habit. This knowledge and his sense of wonder at the natural world brings the reader very close to his story, both in its setting and its characters. One early morning Miles says, "...the water was so clear I could see coon-stripe shrimp ... and the bottomless bed of white clam shells ... Those shells, as unique and timeless as bones, helped me realize that we all die young, that in the life of the earth, we are houseflies, here for one flash of light." Such insights are perfectly natural coming from Miles, whose interests are not garden-variety. He has a mad crush on the mixed-up 18-year-old girl next door, a randy age-mate named Phelps, and a deep friendship with Florence, the elderly woman his mother refers to as "a crazy witch." Florence is a psychic of sorts and her powers come into play when she predicts an extremely high tide on a certain day. All of these relationships and what is happening between Miles's parents are part of this event-filled, life-changing summer. Early on, Miles says off the top of his head, when asked by a TV reporter why a deep-sea creature has found its way to his front yard, "Maybe the earth is trying to tell us something." What the earth and the sea and the people in Miles's life are all trying to tell him is what he susses out in the days that follow--before that high tide. This absolutely luminous first novel has all the earmarks of a classic. The Highest Tide is destined to be read, re-read, and to remain on bookshelves for the enjoyment of generations to come. --Valerie Ryan
Product Description
A mesmerizing, allegorical, and beautifully wrought first novel about one boy’s fascination with the sea during the summer that will change his life.
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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 53 more reviews...
"Maybe the earth is trying to tell us something" May 11, 2008
Miles O'Malley is like many 13 year olds in plenty of respects. His parents are getting separated, he is infatuated with his former babysitter and 17 year old neighbor and is a science geek. Furthermore, his best friend is Florence, an elderly woman with a Parkinson's-like nervous disorder rendering her housebound and increasingly reliant on Miles for day-to-day tasks.
What separates Miles from other 13 year olds is his exceptional knowledge of tidal pools, specifically one at the southern end of Puget Sound near Olympia, WA, marine life and his fascination and admiration for Rachel Carson. One summer night, as Miles battles one of his frequent cases of insomnia, he sneaks down to the water and discovers one of the rarest of sea creatures, a giant squid. Soon Miles becomes a local and then national celebrity for his frequent finds in the South Sound waters of non-native species.
I am not a marine biologist and didn't expect to be as fascinated with the vivid details that Lynch paints of barnacles, cephalopods and other fairly obscure marine life that most casuals observers won't be familiar with. I can't say that every bit of detail kept me engrossed, but as someone living in the Seattle area, I was probably more predisposed to a lot of the detail of the sea life and especially the geography of the area than I normally would have been.
For a first time novel, I thought this novel worked on several levels. It's a great coming of age tale, perfectly capturing the fear, insecurity, hope and infatuation of a modern day young teenager. As a novel of the sea, Lynch certainly demonstrates his knowledge and acumen of marine life, captures the power and deep rooted mystical power of the sea. And as an allegory.
Lynch certainly is someone that I'll keep my eye on for his second novel given the promise he showed in "The Highest Tide".
Impressive First Novel April 4, 2008
Lynch's The Highest Tide is a great read for two reasons. First, because of the strong environmentalist imperative that drives the book. Lynch is a talented writer, but he's also ensconced himself within a tradition that is very important---and in the process of being revitalized---within the American literary landscape. Granted, the book does become a bit didactic in places, while in other places it becomes difficult to take the Rachel Carson-quoting Miles (the main character) seriously, but it's impossible not to take the book's thesis seriously: "Maybe the earth is trying to tell us something." The book acknowledges that human beings, so caught up with themselves and their immediate concerns, seldom take the time to really look and listen to their natural surroundings. This is where Lynch's book, which is a summons for us stop, enjoy and appreciate nature, becomes so important.
Second, yes, as everyone else has acknowledged, this is a wonderful coming of age novel. While Miles' insatiable appetite for anything and everything having to do with mariene biology is almost impossible to relate to, as is the fact that his best friend is an ailing senior-citizen psychic, Lynch paints Miles with painstaking tenderness. Despite his unusualness (which Miles fully acknowledges himself), Miles emerges as a relatable character; he's curious, fallible, vunerable, frightened, slightly rebellious, unsure of himself at times, given to bouts of romanticism . . . in short, your typical adolescent.
I really enjoyed this book overall. Lynch has a way with words and his use of figurative language is very tight. The book is a fast read, it's humorous, its characters are interesting, and its message is moving.
 Great Book!!!!! March 5, 2008
I read this book, a little while ago, and I thought it was a great book. It has alot of detail, and you really get the image of what the character is finding. I'm eleven and I read this book, it was at some times innapropriate, but I suggest this book to 12 year olds and up.
 Strange February 24, 2008
This book is slow paced and interesting. However, it did leave me wanting a little more out of Lynch. The main character is great, and all the characters really are really well developed, the story line, I felt needed something a little more to it.
Moving literary drama about growing up and ocean wonders September 23, 2007
I'm still reeling from the glorious images of the ocean that Jim Lynch put in my head with his prose. It made the ocean come alive for me, filled me with more wonder than I've had in a long time.
Miles O'Malley, the protagonist, lives right by the mudflats of Puget Sound, and because he cares enough to pay attention, he finds wonderful things like a dying giant squid, a ragfish, geoducks, sea cucumbers, and glowing, mating worms. And because he reads plenty, he knows these creatures well enough to perform the cheeky but harmless art of revenge of placing a sea cucumber in his friend's arms so that it vomits its internal organs onto the poor fellow's head. Change is rife in Miles' life. He's on the brink of a growth spurt, he's in love with his former babysitter and wonders if she'll ever feel the same way, and he's witnessing the crumbling of his parents' marriage. How do you know he wants his parents to stay together? After his parents realize how gifted he is, they want to reward him, but Miles asks only for them to stay together, even though in his boyish heart, he's always longed for a dog.
Miles is a huge fan of Rachel Carson, and after reading the passages that he quotes, I've become one too. Carson describes the oceans and its life in the language of a poet's dream. And as Miles says, she sums up "the entire history and role of the ocean in two sentences: 'In its mysterious past it encompasses all the dim origins of life and receives in the end, after, it may be, many transmutations, the dead husks of that same life. For all at last return to the sea - to Oceanus, the ocean river, like the ever-flowing stream of time, the beginning and the end.'"
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Wildlife, nature and the Environment
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