old Miles O'Malley, a speed-reading, Rachel Carson-obsessed insomniac out looking for tidal specimens in Puget Sound, discovers a giant squid stranded on the beach. As the first person to see a giant squid alive, he finds himself hailed as a prophet. But Miles is really just a kid 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. As 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 stunning prose, author Jim Lynch puts sea life into a kaleidoscope where swirling shapes burst and reconfigure in continuous life-affirming wonder...The balance of elegance, groundedness and style is remarkable."-San Francisco Chronicle
"An irresistible coming-of-age fable, dappled with lyricism, briny honesty and good humor. It's as if Carson herself (or, say, John McPhee) had turned to fiction, bringing an exacting sense of the ebb and flow of nature to the story of one largely unsupervised boy and the exploration of his surroundings."-Los Angeles Times
"Unforgettable...[A] classic coming-of-age story, told with wry wit and quirky mating-marine-life facts."-Seattle Times
"In his superb first novel, Olympia's Jim Lynch has achieved a unique literary Triple Crown: 1) best coming-of-age novel set in the Pacific Northwest in recent memory; 2) best novel to resurrect the writing of the visionary Rachel Carson; 3) best novel to educate people about that mysteriously awesome place where freshwater meets the sea."-Oregonian
"The fertile strangeness of marine tidal life becomes a subtly executed metaphor for the bewilderments of adolescence in this tender and authentic coming-of-age novel."-Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Nerdy, vulnerable,