by Jim Lynch
The sun had only been gone for two days, but it already felt like a friendly stranger on my back as we paddled past Chatham Cove. Amazingly, I felt the way you feel after you’ve had a head cold for so long you forget how terrific it is to just feel normal.
“You realize that they had eleven hotshot scientists study that squid I found?” I asked Angie. “Well, they still didn’t learn a dang thing from it—not even what it eats or how fast it swims or what its natural color is. Isn’t that awesome? People seem to think we already know everything, that science is about what’s already known. It isn’t!” I watched the back of her head nod, but could tell I was losing her. “I mean we’re just now getting around to dropping tiny, one-man submarines into the deepest ocean trenches. And they’re finding all kinds of things we didn’t know existed, including all these deepwater freaks that hang out next to hot vents.” I shared some explorer’s descriptions I’d read of six-foot tube worms, orange frogfish, viper sharks and colorful unnamed creatures that looked like hand puppets.
She kept nodding, but when she turned to sweep bangs off her face I could see her eyes were closed.
“Even a few years ago they didn’t expect to find any life way down there,” I continued. “And now all this crazy stuff is showing up. It’s as if we’d finally got to the top of Everest and found blue owls and winged leopards enjoying the thin air. I mean they’re discovering hundreds of new fish species every year now, which is terrific, but I kinda hope the ocean doesn’t give up all of its secrets before I can maybe help discover some of them. I know that sounds selfish, but do you know what I mean?”
The more I talked the stronger I felt. Or maybe I talked out of a fear of being cornered with my thoughts. Regardless, I overflowed with words and I eventually—big surprise—rattled on about Rachel Carson. “Her brothers and sisters were so much older than her that she was basically an only child like me. But get this: She grew up near Pittsburgh and didn’t even see the ocean or a tidal pool until she was twenty-two. Can you believe that? The lady who became the voice of the ocean didn’t even see salt water until she was older than you. And you know one of the coolest things about her? She wasn’t intimidated by time. Most people’s imagination doesn’t extend beyond a hundred years. Rachel Carson could imagine billions of years without blinking. At the end of The Sea Around Us, she summed 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.’”
Angie’s head sagged and bobbed, then she stiffened and carefully turned in her seat and put her dreamy eyes on me. “I need to stretch out.”
“You want to head back?” I dragged my paddle to begin a U-turn, and realized the current was already too strong to fight.
“I just want to stretch my legs,” she said.
I shrugged. “Where?”
She braced herself on the rails and crawled toward me on her knees. There aren’t many stupider things you can do in a canoe, but I didn’t try to talk her out of it. When she got all the way up to me, the canoe wobbling on its stern, she pulled my knees apart and gracefully turned yet again, then leaned back against my seat and extended dark, mosquito-bitten legs. Her naked shoulders pressed against my knees as we drifted swiftly past Whiskey Point, our bow riding high.
I relaxed my legs to help her get comfortable, and eventually she settled, then lolled her head into my lap so that I could inhale the leafy smell of her hair and examine her whole face up close. I tried not to stare because I was pretty sure she was the sort of person who could see through eyelids, but I felt her body slacken, and when it was obvious she was sleeping I counted her freckles until I couldn’t resist touching her eyebrow ring or running two careful fingers through her bangs.
“The ocean will wait for you, Miles,” she whispered. “And so will I.”
Maybe I didn’t hear her right. It was just the faintest of whispers. She might have been babbling in her sleep. But I didn’t let any of that stop me from taking her words exactly the way I wanted to take them.
After her breathing slowed and her lips parted, I tried to paddle without thinking about Florence, without moving below my waist, without flipping the canoe or waking the magnificent Angie Stegner. That all worked fine until my paddle plowed into rubbery water, and I glanced down at hundreds of pulsing moon jellies to the right, then thousands more to the left, an endless gaggle of fringed, see-through flowers packed so tightly together they changed the texture and color of the bay in the silvery glare of the forgotten sun. The more I looked the more there were, galaxies upon galaxies of brainless jellies, riding the powerful current, pressing up against the canoe, carrying us out to sea.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to everyone who helped make The Highest Tide happen.
Kim Witherspoon and Karen Rinaldi embraced the story and provided vision and support. Alan Rammer shared his knowledge and love of tidal life. Panio Gianopoulos offered deft editing. Jess Walter inspired me in countless ways. Alexis Hurley kept me sane.
Others who helped in various ways include Delia Whitehead, Andy Parker, Steve Kroeger, Reid Phelps, Matt Willkens and Craig Welch. Thanks also to my parents, Levin and Janet, sister Jennie and daughter Grace.
But without Denise’s daily gift of patience, wisdom and laughter this novel would not have been possible, nor so fun to write.
A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR
Lynch has won national journalism awards and
published short fiction in literary magazines. 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.
READING GROUP GUIDE
Praise for The Highest Tide
“An irresistible coming-of-age fable, dappled with lyricism, briny honesty and good humor. It’s as if [Rachel] Carson herself (or, say, John McPhee) had turned to fiction, bringing an exacting sense of the ebb and flow of nature . . .” —Los Angeles Times
“Unforgettable . . . In this classic coming-of-age story, told with wry wit and quirky mating-marine-life facts, nonfiction writer and first-time novelist Lynch has proved he can straddle the two forms . . . Finely paced [and] richly textured.” —Seattle Times
“A generous-make that magical-biology lesson about who we are in relation to all that lives around us.” —Washington Times
“Lynch dazzles the reader with exquisite detail about the creatures that Miles comes across. It’s not a stretch to say that once you’ve read The Highest Tide, you’ll never look at a tidal mudflat in the same way again . . . Lynch has written a compact, lively, timely, ecologically insightful and spiritual story. In Miles, Lynch has created an unforgettable adolescent character strongly rooted to nature.” — Oregonian
“The wonders of Puget Sound marine life and the wonders of adolescent life merge into a magic-laden novel . . . Delightful.” —Seattle Post-Intelligencer
“Lynch . . . has a knack for making us look again at the familiar. One of the pleasures of The Highest Tide is the detailed, almost encyclopedic descriptions he gives of what he’s seen in the waters of Puget Sound . . . Lynch’s book is a celebration of what’s still there, rather than a lament for what’s disappeared.” —Newsday
“Nerdy, vulnerable, obsessive, pure, Miles has a flavor about him of Christopher . . . in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.” —Miami Herald
“In his smart, winning, and unpretentiously lyrical debut novel, Olympia writer Jim Lynch has crafted what may be a first: a page-turner with the sea as its most vivid character . . . The book comes alive whenever it gets near water, depicting a rich tidal world in lovely, precise prose powered by the poetry of fact.” —Seattle Weekly
“A superbly detailed first novel in which the Puget Sound setting is the real star.” —Portland Tribune
“Jim Lynch combines the spirits of two 1960s classics, To Kill a Mockingbird and Silent Spring, in this knock-out debut novel . . . If novels were bioluminescent, the glow from this one would dominate bookstore shelves.” —Eugene Register-Guard
“Jim Lynch’s debut novel is a moving reminder that the Garden of Eden is not a mythical place but a planet covered mostly by oceans that contain 80 percent of all known life . . . Lynch builds suspense like a surging tide, taking time to show his readers the life-affirming wonders found in the swirling eddies along the way. This is a funny, tender novel that shows what can happen when we hold out our hands to catch the rain and follow Miles’ advice: ‘Look around.’” —W11amette Week
“A surprisingly complex and integrated first novel. It’s philosophical and touching, real, sometimes erotic and blessed by the spirit of Rachel Carson. In one sense, it is a coming-of-age story about a 13-year-old boy, but it also is a stirring examination of our fascination with the sea, especially where it touches the land . . . This is a book about wonder that creates wonder itself.” —Salem (OR) Statesman Journal
“The Highest Tide is a phosphorescent debut . . . [a] rare find, a book that works on several levels and appeals equally to several age groups.’ —Fort Myers News-Press
“In many ways it is the perfect gift book as it knows no bounds-it offers a story in a very specific setting about a boy who sees things, who notices things, and brings about a great difference in the lives of others because of this. Mostly though, it is just a story, a perfectly wonderful and complete story, which should be only and entirely what every reader is looking for.” —Bookslut
“This beautiful novel is sure to charm readers with its stunning imagery and amazing characters. The sense of place is so strong in this book that reading it will feel like taking a vacation, and the characters, quirky, flawed and sad as they are, will not easily slip from memory. Lynch’s language sparkles with his love of the ocean . . . Read this book and be left eagerly anticipating Lynch’s next work.” —Bookpage
“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.” —Cannon Beach (OR) Gazette
Q&A with Jim Lynch
Q What inspired The Highest Tide?
A: A strange deep-sea fish washed up on a beach near my home, reminding me that just about anything swimming or floating in the Pacific can turn up in quiet southern Puget Sound. The next step was realizing it’s often kids who make the discoveries, which led to the creation of Miles.
Q Many debut novels are autobiographical, especially first-person novels. How much of you and your life is there in Miles’s story?
A: Miles isn’t based on me. AU of the scenes were invented, and his parents and circumstances were nothing like mine. However, I shared some of his insecurities and sensibilities, and I too felt that the world was stunningly in focus at his age.
Q Clearly you admire Rachel Carson’s work. When did you first read her, and did you always intend to give her work such prominence in The Highest Tide?
A: I read her classic Silent Spring a long time ago, but it wasn’t until I was researching this novel that I discovered her brilliant and poetic books about the ocean. And after I read about her reverence for a child’s sense of wonder with the natural world, it made sense to me to weave her into the story by making Miles obsessed with her insights and observations.
Q You write so vividly about marine life. What inspired your fascination with the water’s edge?
A: It began in my childhood, but I’ve been lucky to live near a Puget Sound beach for the past seven years. The more you learn about the tidal world, the richer it gets. And part of what I set out to do was to capture the humbling sensation that you feel while walking alone on an ocean beach.
Q What sort of research did you do for the novel?
A: I read marine biology books and sex guides, and I interviewed a psychic. I explored tidal flats during the day and at night with a headlamp. I interviewed experts on flotsam and tidal currents and spent a lot of time with a state biologist who has given tidal tours to teens for the past twenty years.
Q What is your advice to aspiring fiction writers?
A: Think your stories through before you try to create them. And write about what fascinates you. If your subject gets more interesting the closer you look at it then maybe you’ve found material that will be worth the sweat.
Book Group Questions
1. Does The Highest Tide remind you of other novels? If so, which ones and why? If not, what makes it unique?
2. At one point, Miles comments that adults are usually more interested in what kids are going to become than what they are. Is Miles an extraordinary child or is he simply another example of the innocent wisdom of children that adults often overlook?
3. Channel 7’s story about the “remarkable Olympia boy” makes much of Miles’s gift for finding and seeing marine life that others can’t. Florence, too, knows what others can’t know. What does the novel say about this ability to see or know things others can’t? Is it a gift or a particular kind of attention?
4. The characters in this book are a study in contrasts: Miles’s best friend is an elderly housebound woman, his first love is an unstable older girl, and his own parents are as indifferent as he is impassioned. What can we learn from such starkly contrasting individuals, and how do their relationships shape the book?
5. Why do you think Miles and Florence are so close? What do they offer each other?
6. What does Kenny Phelps, Miles’s foul-mouthed sidekick, add to the novel? Humor? Realism?
7. Miles has a knack for rescuing people and creatures, or at least trying to. Recall as many rescues or attempted rescues as you can. What does this trait tell you about Miles?
8. The novel is rich with imagery and metaphors. What do you think the giant squid symbolizes? What metaphors or symbols stood out for you?
9. Near the end of the story, Miles says, “In the space of a summer I’d learned that everything was changing, including me.” How has Miles changed during the summer, and why?
10. In the final scene, Miles and Angie ride the outgoing tide in her canoe, and Mies quotes Rachel Carson: “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.” Angie tells Mies that she and the sea will wait for him. In what ways is the scene symbolic? What possible interpretations does it suggest?
Copyright © 2005 by Jim Lynch
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Bloomsbury USA, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Excerpts from The Edge of the Sea by Rachel Carson. Copyright © 1955 by Rachel L. Carson, renewed 1983 by Roger Christie. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Lynch, Jim, 1961-
The highest tide : a novel / Jim Lynch.—1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
ISBN-13 978-1-58234-605-2 (hardcover)
1. Teenage boys—Fiction. 2. Puget Sound Region (Wash.)—Fiction. 3. Carson, Rachel, 1907-1964—InfluenceÐFiction. 4. Marine animals— Fiction. 5. Tides—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3612.Y542H54 2005
813’.6—dc22
2004029187
First published by Bloomsbury USA in 2005
This e-book edition published in 2010
E-book ISBN: 978-1-59691-848-1
www.bloomsburyusa.com