The Beach Book (A Literary Companion)

Whether hailing from Costa Rica or Newport Beach, New Jersey beaches or the shores of Belize, these stories, essays, and poems explore the endless variations of life at the beach. The pleasure of personal discovery that compels the writers in this volume is one readers will relish and share-as guilt-free beach reading or as an armchair vacation.

Here in abundant variety are the unique characters of coastal life-diamondback terrapins, ospreys, moray eels, and rockfish, as well as crabbers, fishermen, and "summer people"-all forms of life are described by diction that is deliciously specific, informed by both experience and passion.

This is an anthology of deep feeling for the relationships among humans as well as our relationship to nature. In "Off Season," by Sallie Bingham, a young mistress plays hostess in Key West to her new lover's wife, visiting from Chicago. In Peter Cameron's story, "Nuptials & Heathens," New Yorkers weekend on the coast of Maine.

Poems by Gray Jacobik, Chase Twitchell, Kathleen Halme, and others are lyrical surrenders to the shore's seductive allure. Peter Matthiessen recounts his experiences as captain of the Merlin, a charter fishing boat, off Montauk, Long Island.

And though there's a lot to celebrate in these pages, the conscience has not taken a vacation. Yusef Komunyakaa's poems dramatize racism at Newport Beach and depict the perspective of Thai fishermen limited by class circumstances. Literary essays by Jennifer Ackerman and Tom Horton are impassioned testaments to the need for ecological awareness.

If ever there were SOS messages in bottles, sent adrift with the desperate prayer that they would reach someone, somewhere-messages on which lives depend-here they are: uncorked.

Contributors:
Jennifer Ackerman
Ralph Angel
Emma Aprile
Sallie Bingham
Peter Cameron
Lucille Clifton
Charles D'Ambrosio, Jr.
Maria Flook
Terri Ford
Debora Greger
Kathleen Halme
James Harms