Rocks, cliff faces, quarries gouged in earth. Not much for most of us to look at, but for paleontologist Andrew Knoll, they are radiant with meaning, telling a story he says is far grander and stuffed with more plot twists than any Hollywood blockbuster.
That tale is Earth's history -- how the planet went from a rock covered in magma oceans buffeted by comets and meteors to a green and blue orb teeming with life. Between those inhospitable beginnings and now, continents formed and were torn apart, mountain ranges appeared and disappeared, ice caps spread and receded. These are the lost worlds that Knoll has explored and shed light on.
This is that other kind of beach read — not for casual consumption while stretched out on the warm sand, but to read and contemplate while you’re inside on a chilly day, remembering the beauties of the coast and the pull of the tides.
That the narrator and author of this Florida-set debut share a name is no coincidence. This is raw, semi-autobiographical fiction at its most painfully honest, which could only have been written from actual experience of a teenage descent into addiction, criminality and young offender institutions.