Close to Shore - Michael Capuzzo [0]
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
EPIGRAPH
AUTHOR'S NOTE
MAP OF NEW JERSEY AND COASTLINE
THE LAST MAN IN THE WATER
PART ONE
AN ERRATIC ERA
The Hotel
The Fish
The Doctor
The Biter with the Jagged Teeth
To Be Different from What Has Been
The Most Frightening Animal on Earth
A Train to the Coast
The Sea Monster
Paradise
Twins of Darkness
Red in Tooth and Claw
A Doctor in the House
PART TWO
A REIGN OF TERROR
Screams for Rescue
Fears Only Thinly Veiled
Independence Day
The Distance Swimmers
To Find Prey
The Red Canoe
The Grande Dame
The Scientist
Arrival of a Man-Eater
Myths of Antiquity
A Long-Range Cruising Rogue
A Great Many Bathers Are Rather Scarce
Disporting in a Perfect Surf
PART THREE
TO DESTROY NO MORE
Toward the World of Men
The Beloved Heart of the Town
Alien World
The Creek
Under a Full Moon
Like a Cat Shakes a Mouse
A Splendid Type of Young Manhood
Fleeing for Safety
To See Its Body Drawn Up on the Shore
Intense with Need
To Drive Away the Sharks
Something Peculiarly Sinister
Like a Tale from the Stone Age
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
SOURCES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PRAISE FOR CLOSE TO SHORE
COPYRIGHT PAGE
To my father, William, who was born in the time of the shark and died while I was writing this story; my wife, Teresa, first ever in my heart, who turned the nightmares of predators into dreams; and finally Cosmo, a beagle, who sat on my lap all during the writing, watching for prey moving in the fields.
“The beach was such a novel experience that most were completely unfamiliar with the health hazards—and risks to life and limb—it posed.”
—Gideon Bosker and Lena Lencek,
The Beach: The History of Paradise on Earth
“We're not just afraid of predators, we're transfixed by them, prone to weave stories and fables and chatter endlessly about them, because fascination creates preparedness, and preparedness, survival. In a deeply tribal sense, we love our monsters.”
—E. O. Wilson
Author's Note
This is a work of nonfiction. All characters are real, and their descriptions, actions and dialogue are based on newspaper accounts, interviews with family members, diaries, medical journals, and other historic sources. All of the shark attacks occurred as described in numerous contemporary newspaper accounts and interviews. To reconstruct the life of a shark in 1916 presented unique challenges. Its movements and the reasons for its unprecedented attacks have baffled scientists for nearly a century, and the mystery endures. I have given the most realistic and thorough account possible of the shark's actions based on the best available science, including interviews with ichthyologists and a study of current scientific literature. I have tried to make the individuals who play a role in this story come to life through the use of numerous historical and contemporary sources, and none utters a word, to the best of my knowledge, that he or she did not say. In rare and minor cases where the facts could not be discovered, for instance, whether a man took a hansom or automobile, I have used the same technique applied to the shark—to portray the most likely event based on extensive research of the time, place, and character. These few instances do not affect what I intended to be the most thorough and realistic account of the shark and the people and society it changed in 1916.
Michael Capuzzo
Wenonah, New Jersey
March 1, 2001
The Last Man in the Water
The smell of the sea pulled him east. The Atlantic spread before him like a pool of diamonds, liquefied, tossing gently in gleaming tips and shards of changeable, fading bronze light. The sun climbed down toward dusk behind mountains of clouds swollen with moisture. The young man couldn't wait to get in the water.
The sandy beach stretched for miles. Behind him were sea-grass-covered dunes, bleached fragments of shipwrecks, the shadows of Victorian turrets facing the sea. The warm