Monterey Bay

A Novel

By: Lindsay Hatton

Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman

A beautiful debut set around the creation of the world-famous Monterey Bay Aquarium - and the last days of John Steinbeck's Cannery Row

In 1940, 15-year-old Margot Fiske arrives on the shores of Monterey Bay with her eccentric entrepreneur father. Margot has been her father's apprentice all over the world, until an accident in Monterey's tide pools drives them apart and plunges her headfirst into the mayhem of John Steinbeck's Cannery Row.

Steinbeck is hiding out from his burgeoning fame at the raucous lab of Ed Ricketts, the biologist known as Doc in Cannery Row. Ricketts, a charismatic bohemian, quickly becomes the object of Margot's fascination. Despite Steinbeck's protests and her father's misgivings, she wrangles a job as Ricketts' sketch artist and begins drawing the strange and wonderful sea creatures he pulls from the waters of the bay.

Unbeknownst to Margot, her father is also working with Ricketts. He is soliciting the biologist's advice on his most ambitious and controversial project to date: the transformation of the Row's largest cannery into an aquarium. When Margot begins an affair with Ricketts, she sets in motion a chain of events that will affect not just the two of them but the future of Monterey as well.

Alternating between past and present, Monterey Bay explores histories both imagined and actual to create an unforgettable portrait of an exceptional woman, a world-famous aquarium, and the beloved town they both call home.

©2016 Lindsay Hatton (P)2016 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“Hatton’s debut novel is complex, with a palpable air hanging over all…and characters [that readers] will want to examine and understand, just as Ed Ricketts does with the sea creatures he collects from tide pools.... The language and descriptions are compelling…the author has created an unforgettable debut.” (Library Journal)

“[Hatton’s] knowledge of the area and its history lend her novel an impressive richness of detail…[Margot] is not a character to be trifled with, and the blunt ways she deals with obstacles in her path are what give Monterey Bay its narrative acceleration and emotional drive…Monterey Bay gets to the heart of a remarkable place, a vanished time and a singular relationship.” (Portland Press Herald)

"A tasty stew of people, fish, and romance.... A strength of Hatton's approach is her delicate yet dramatic descriptions of sea creatures, most of which few readers will have encountered.... Local color bleeds through on every page.... Overall, a mood of thwarted love reigns. You feel she knows her stuff, and there's poetry in it." (NPR.org)

Rotten seafood on the bay

The focus of this story unfortunately was on the sex lives of its major characters

That said Houghton is an excellent writer I would read her other work when published with hopes that she would choose a theme that was much more interesting and savory

Narrator is the best thing about MONTEREY BAY

Any additional comments?

Rebecca Lowman is one of my favorite readers. She's why I finished listening to the book, which lost me in the midst of its flowery lanaguage. Also, I kept wondering what the Packard family thinks of it - they are the real founders of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, not this author's fictional heroine. What the ...?