Let Lynch's Fiction Take You To The Invisible Boundary and Beyond

Join best-selling author Jim Lynch for his book reading at the Wenatchee Library, Wednesday Sept 30, 7:00 PM.

Rich in characters contending with a swiftly changing world and their own elusive hopes and dreams, Jim Lynch's fiction is comic and tender and momentous. Lynch's riveting portraits of distinctive communities are extraordinary love stories, and fiction of the highest order.

With a reporter's clarity and a love of complex characters and land, Jim Lynch brings the Pacific Northwest to life, from briny sea creatures, to 6'8" dyslexic border-patrol agents, to elusive wild birds, to the girl next door. "I fall in love with places and think about them and study them until the characters and stories rise up," says Lynch.

Border Songs

Lynch's latest novel, Border Songs, tells of transformation of land and people along Washington state's northern border. A rural landscape of dairy and berry farms is becoming the front line in an escalating war on drugs and terrorism. Border patrol agent Brandon, uncomfortable in his uniformed role, indulges his passion for bird-watching and finds not only an astonishing variety of species but also a great many drug smugglers, as well as potentially more dangerous illegals. Meanwhile his father is battling disease in his herd and his mother something far more frightening. A rich tapestry of other lives is unfolding just across the invisible, but all-important, border line. While overseeing all is the mysterious masseuse who knows everybody's secrets.

"Border Songs is one of the more inventive and unique novels of recent years. Lynch's dexterous handling of multiple voices and storylines makes Border Songs a book that goes by all too quickly." — Rege Behe, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

"Lynch's comic borderland is not only palpable, it is richly metaphoric. Comparisons with Ken Kesey and Tom Robbins are not only inevitable, they are welcome." — The Globe and Mail (Canada)

The Highest Tide

Lynch's first novel, The Highest Tide, a national best-seller and Pacific Northwest Bookseller's Award-winner, has been translated into ten languages. The Highest Tide is the story of Miles, an insomniac thirteen-year-old in love with the girl next door, whose discovery of a rare sea creature on the tide flats one night sets in motion an elaborate chain of events. As Miles struggles with the unfolding journey, he must face the equally mysterious process of growing up.

"The kind of novel that book clubs live for, heartwarming, but not unsophisticated." — Detroit Free Press

"A remarkable first novel ... 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." — Los Angeles Times

"Graceful and inventive first novel ... [Lynch's) declarative style and vivid imagery allow the science of the ocean to blend easily with its poetry." — New York Times Book Review

About the Author

"The first real writing job I had was as a reporter in an Alaskan fishing village, but I'd somehow found ways to write stories during the odd jobs I had before then, including stints as a bellman, a security guard, a salmon cannery worker and a maid at The Old Faithful Inn at Yellowstone National Park," says Lynch.

Jim Lynch now lives with his wife and their daughter in Olympia, Washington. As a journalist, he has received the Livingston Award for Young Journalists, among other national honors. His first novel, The Highest Tide, won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, appeared on several best seller lists, was adapted for the stage and has been published in eleven foreign markets. Border Songs, released June 2009, is already an international bestseller.

Buy a SIGNED Copy of Border Songs - $25.95
Buy a SIGNED Copy of The Highest Tide - $13.95