Close to Shore: A True Story of Terror in an Age of Innocence

by Michael Capuzzo | History | This book has not been rated.
ISBN: 0767904133 Global Overview for this book
Registered by AuntNub of Tarrytown, New York USA on 3/26/2007
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1 journaler for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by AuntNub from Tarrytown, New York USA on Monday, March 26, 2007
What you have in your hands is an honest-to-goodness gift, no strings attached. You may keep it forever and ever, pass it on to a friend, or release it in the wild like I did. I know it may seem a little odd to find this lying around--it's my way of touching the lives of others in a positive way, with the hope that it made your day. :)

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From Amazon.com:
Michael Capuzzo tells the harrowing story of the real-life Jaws that helped inspire Peter Benchley's classic novel (and movie). Modern science now tells us that shark attacks are exceedingly rare and limited to just a few species. Yet they do occur, and one of the most terrifying episodes of fatal attacks occurred near the New Jersey shore in 1916, when a renegade great white shark went on a man-eating spree that left three adults and one boy dead. Capuzzo likens the shark's abnormal behavior to that of a person "who goes off the deep end and starts shooting." Whatever its motives, the shark captivated the public's imagination along the Eastern seaboard, devastated the resort economy, and even drew the attention of President Woodrow Wilson.

Close to Shore is a bit slow to get going and could have been a much shorter book. There is a fair amount of stage setting, and the first shark attack doesn't occur until about one-third of the way through the narrative. But Capuzzo does much with limited source material and includes lots of interesting asides on everything from the lore of sea monsters to the bathing-suit fashions of the day to nearly everything science knows about great whites, which, it turns out, is surprisingly little.

Alternating from the victims' perspectives to the shark's, Capuzzo's descriptions of the attacks are a blend of horrors and thrills: "Charles Bruder felt a slight vacuum tug in the motion of the sea, noted it as a passing current, the pull of a wave, the tickle of undertow. He could not have heard the faint, sucking rush of water not far beneath him. He couldn't have seen or heard what was hurtling from the murk at astonishing speed, jaws unhinging, widening, for the enormous first bite. It was the classic attack that no other creature in nature could make--a bomb from the depths." If this book were on any other subject, it would make for good beach reading.

Journal Entry 2 by AuntNub from Tarrytown, New York USA on Monday, March 26, 2007
Pre-numbered label used for registration.

Journal Entry 3 by AuntNub from Tarrytown, New York USA on Friday, June 22, 2007
I'm taking this book with me on vacation in Montauk, NY this coming week. I will be leaving it somewhere there.

Journal Entry 4 by AuntNub at Mr John's Pancake House in Montauk, New York USA on Friday, June 29, 2007

Released 16 yrs ago (6/29/2007 UTC) at Mr John's Pancake House in Montauk, New York USA

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Left on a bench in front of Mr John's Pancake House.

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