{"id":356,"date":"2005-12-19T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-04T22:28:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/?p=356"},"modified":"2024-12-31T12:30:10","modified_gmt":"2024-12-30T23:30:10","slug":"the-highest-tide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/2005\/12\/19\/the-highest-tide\/","title":{"rendered":"The Highest Tide"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-large-font-size\"><strong>Jim Lynch<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-large-font-size\"><em>Bloomsbury<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-medium-font-size\">Otago Daily Times, December 19th 2005<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><em>The Highest Tide<\/em> is essentially a coming-of-age novel with an environmental tint.\u00a0\u00a0The hero, 13 year old Miles O\u2019Malley, has two great obsessions; the ocean (he idolises Rachel Carson and can quote much of her writing verbatim) and his former babysitter,\u00a0 Angie.\u00a0 A budding entrepreneur and insomniac, he scours the sands and mudflats of America\u2019s Puget Sound- often at strange hours-for specimens to sell to local aquarium shops and restaurants, while keeping close watch on changing landscape of the tidal zone.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"> It is not surprising, therefore, that he is the first to notice the arrival of some unusual (and sometimes unwelcome) new arrivals, including invasive species of crab and seaweed, and a giant squid.\u00a0 His discovery of the latter makes him an overnight media sensation, and he soon becomes something of an environmental messiah as he advocates for the protection of the world\u2019s oceans.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">When not preoccupied with the Bay, he is caught in the grip of (probably) unrequited desire for Angie, and the prospect of his parent\u2019s divorce.\u00a0 All of which makes for a turbulent summer, during which he (as he put it) sorts out his view of the Universe.\u00a0 And a worthy view it is too, one which will stand him in good stead in the US Green Party.\u00a0 Unfortunately , though, Lynch fails to capture the thoughts and idioms of a teenage boy.\u00a0 Miles seemed a little too much like a grown-up voice in a child\u2019s body for me to suspend disbelief and fully enter the story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jim Lynch<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Otago Daily Times review December 19th 2005<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[32,370,44,18],"class_list":["post-356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","tag-32","tag-fiction","tag-jim-lynch","tag-odt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1345,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356\/revisions\/1345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}