The devil's teeth : a true story of obsession and survival among America's great white sharks

269 Pages·2008·3.29 MB·English

by  Susan Casey

Praise for The Devil’s Teeth
“Susan Casey’s lively portrait of life among Northern California’s white sharks
and the dogged researchers who study them indulges in just the right mix of
anxiety, gore and reassuring shark science. One can find reason to fear the waves
and then muster the courage to enter them, usually within the same chapter….
The sharks are the stars of Casey’s story, but the Farallones steal the show.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“Extraordinary.”
—Men’s Journal
“[A] page-turner…‘Los Farallones’ remain icons of the elemental and the wild.
Most visitors can only glimpse them from afar, from a whale watch or dive boat.
So true insight has to come from someone privileged to live on the rocks with
the tiny crew of professional biologists that dwell in weathered old Coast Guard
housing. This book makes the most of that sort of insider access…. A fine read.
The book gives you a way of reaching these mysterious isles without getting
wet. Or seasick.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Casey’s chronicle of how this unique environment survived nuclear
contamination and endless harebrained development schemes (including the
proposed relocation of Alcatraz) is one of many stranger-than-fiction elements.
As the shark trivia and anecdotes about the islands’ Wild West past give way to
a hair-raising account of an illfated shark-tagging mission, Casey becomes an
increasingly active participant in the story while offering skillfully wrought
descriptions of nature’s inscrutable fury. B+.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“A chilling dispatch from the great white shark-filled waters off San Francisco.”
—Life
“Chilling…A lively and detailed account…vivid.”
—USA Today
“An evocative and entertaining account of the cutting edge of marine biology.”
—New Scientist
“Casey has a flair for dramatic descriptions, able to capture the characters she
encounters or the landscape around her with equal aplomb…[Paints] a gripping
portrait of scientists on the outer fringes of society and nature.”
—Seattle Post-Intelligencer
“Casey creates compelling portraits of the legendary predators, as well as of the
scientists.”
—People
“You can’t help but be entertained by a writer who is affectionate about a
shark’s ‘maniac smile’ and thinks a petrel smells ‘musky and heavy and sort of
smoky, like the bird had been part of an all-night poker game.’ Being seduced
into caring about the survival of a ’20-foot-long, eight-foot-wide, six-foot-deep’
nightmare beast is a much harder job, and Casey accomplishes even that without
hardly trying. Her book is an exhilarating reminder that there are elements of
both wonder and revulsion in all things sublime.”
—Newsday
“Guaranteed to scare people right out of the water.”
—Associated Press
“A rare sort of adventure story, which she tells with verve and great sympathy
for the islands, the sharks and the biologists. But another poignant theme
resonates through the book as well…Great whites provide Casey a meaning to
life beyond the human, Thoreau’s ‘tonic of wildness.’”
—The Oregonian
“Casey delivers amazing details…The Devil’s Teeth will surely satisfy your
appetite for all things fanged and finned.”
—National Geographic Adventure
“Riveting and colorful you-are-there adventure.”
—Santa Cruz Sentinel
“I read Susan Casey’s book in a feeding frenzy, satisfying my curiosity while
fueling my fascination with sharks. A thoroughly researched and well-written
piece of literature that raises hairs as well as tickling funny bones, The Devil’s
Teeth artfully reveals what lurks in the shadows of the mysterious great white
and the people obsessed with them. The true triumph of the book, though, is in
Casey’s transcendence of mere journalism—she’s clearly embraced by the world
of which she writes.”
—Linda Greenlaw, author of The Hungry Ocean and All Fishermen Are Liars
“A marvelous book—part adventure, part meditation, part natural history—that
takes the reader on a wild ride into a strange and seductive world. Casey is the
perfect diving companion; her account of life among San Francisco’s shark
population is engaging, smart, and irresistible.”
—Susan Orlean, author of My Kind of Place and The Orchid Thief
“In delivering us to the Farallon Islands, and then into the souls of the
magnificent great white sharks that populate its waters, Susan Casey has really
delivered us into the DNA of our own beings. The Devil’s Teeth is more than a
shark story; it is an account of our instincts, our appetites, even our futures, all
beautifully told by a writer compelled to know.”
—Robert Kurson, author of Shadow Divers
“‘There’s another world, and it’s in this one,’” declares Susan Casey, reveling in
the surreality of her days and nights spent among the world’s coolest, cold-eyed
customers, great white sharks. Who knew these beasts lived so close to San
Francisco, within the pizza delivery zone of that fair city? Casey is a poet, a
bare-knuckled spirit, unabashed and funny, and hers is an entrancing ride to a
beautiful, forbidding place, a new world, close by. Hang on.”
—Doug Stanton, author of In Harm’s Way
“Susan Casey could write about guppies, and I’d want to read her book. I
devoured this book like a shark.”
—Mary Roach, author of Stiff

To my family:
Ron, Angela, Bob, and Bill,
who taught me to love the wild things.
Humanity is exalted not because we are so far
above all living creatures, but because knowing
them well elevates the very concept of life.
—EDWARD O. WILSON
Every angel is terrifying.
—RAINER MARIA RILKE

Contents
Introduction
Book One The Island
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Book Two Shark Season
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Epilogue
Selected Bibliography
Author’s Note
About the Author