Jim Lynch

Over the course of a single summer, thirteen-year-old Miles O'Malley, a young boy with a fascination for the sea, copes with the trials of growing up, his infatuation with the girl next door, bickering parents, and his fear that his life and his beloved Puget Sound are slipping away from him. A first novel. Reprint.

A Novel

The Highest Tide

Border Songs (Vintage Contemporaries)

Set in the previously sleepy hinterlands straddling Washington state and British Columbia, Border Songs is the story of Brandon Vanderkool, six foot eight, frequently tongue-tied, severely dyslexic, and romantically inept. Passionate about bird-watching, Brandon has a hard time mustering enthusiasm for his new job as a Border Patrol agent guarding thirty miles of largely invisible boundary. But to everyone’s surprise, he excels at catching illegal immigrants, and as drug runners, politicians, surveillance cameras, and a potential sweetheart flock to this scrap of land, Brandon is suddenly at the center of something much bigger than himself. A magnificent novel of birding, smuggling, farming and extraordinary love, Border Songs welcomes us to a changing community populated with some of the most memorable characters in recent fiction.

Border Songs

A stunning coming-of-age novel about one boy's mystical bond to the sea. "[A] graceful and inventive first novel." -The New York Times Book Review "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 "As crisp and clean as a cool dip into the water, and just about as refreshing." -Entertainment Weekly "Move over, Holden Caulfield; here's Miles. . . . An uncommon and uncommonly good coming-of-age novel." -Chicago Tribune One moonlit night, thirteen-year-old Miles O'Malley sneaks out of his house and goes exploring on the tidal flats of Puget Sound. When he discovers a rare giant squid, he instantly becomes a local phenomenon. But Miles is really just a kid on the verge of growing up, infatuated with the girl next door, worried that his parents will divorce and fearful that everything, even the bay he loves, is shifting away from him.

It is 1962, and the city of Seattle is about to be famous. Roger Morgan, an audacious young promoter, wants to pull off the ultimate coup de théâtre: the World's Fair, rising out of the downtown fog to show the whole nation that the future has arrived. In the run-up to the Fair's grand opening, Roger is everywhere at once - entertaining Elvis Presley and Lyndon Johnson, dipping in and out of secret card games and smooth-talking his way out of awkward financial questions - all under the haze of many a whiskey and the shadow of a looming crisis in Cuba. Roger dazzles everyone he meets, and is still a backstage power forty years later when, at the age of seventy, he makes a surprise bid for mayor. Helen Gulanos, a journalist new in town and keen to make her mark, sees her retrospectives on the 1962 Fair become front-page news as Roger's candidacy ignites the public imagination. She resolves to uncover the real Roger from behind the warm handshakes and glossy receptions - because even Seattle's golden boy must have something to hide. Woven into in this city of dreams is a cat-and-mouse-tale of back-room deals, idealism and pragmatism, the best and worst ambitions, and the aspirations that shape our communities and our lives. Hard-nosed yet profoundly humane, Truth Like the Sun is the most ambitious novel yet from the beloved author of The Highest Tide.

Truth Like the Sun

The Rhapsody players is a captivating story about how a fascinating group of characters create a springboard to longevity. The story examines the choices they make with respect to their own health, wellness, sexuality and spirituality, even as they build a business that provides these choices to others. The novel is rich with vibrant characters whom you quickly learn to love or to despise. All of this is achieved in a global setting, replete with the issues that face the world during the years 2008 through 2012.

The Rhapsody Players

"These three, inter-related stories describe the lives of three generations of the McGowan family and their personal battles to make a living by working on the Boston waterfront. The common thread that runs through them is the challenges presented by the shape-up or pick-up system, a procedure that was archaic and rife with favoritism and was the sole determining factor whether you received a salary that day... The Longshoremen details the working conditions and challenges of working on the Boston waterfront and is based on the real-life experiences of longshoremen.."--page [4] cover.

Jim Lynch

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