The Devil's Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America's Great White Sharks

Susan Casey

Macmillan, Jun 7, 2005 - Nature - 291 pages

A journalist's obsession brings her to a remote island off the California coast, home to the world's most mysterious and fearsome predators-and the strange band of surfer-scientists who follow them

Susan Casey was in her living room when she first saw the great white sharks of the Farallon Islands, their dark fins swirling around a small motorboat in a documentary. These sharks were the alphas among alphas, some longer than twenty feet, and there were too many to count; even more incredible, this congregation was taking place just twenty-seven miles off the coast of San Francisco.

In a matter of months, Casey was being hoisted out of the early-winter swells on a crane, up a cliff face to the barren surface of Southeast Farallon Island-dubbed by sailors in the 1850s the "devil's teeth." There she joined Scot Anderson and Peter Pyle, the two biologists who bunk down during shark season each fall in the island's one habitable building, a haunted, 135-year-old house spackled with lichen and gull guano. Two days later, she got her first glimpse of the famous, terrifying jaws up close and she was instantly hooked; her fascination soon yielded to obsession-and an invitation to return for a full season. But as Casey readied herself for the eight-week stint, she had no way of preparing for what she would find among the dangerous, forgotten islands that have banished every campaign for civilization in the past two hundred years.

The Devil's Teeth is a vivid dispatch from an otherworldly outpost, a story of crossing the boundary between society and an untamed place where humans are neither wanted nor needed.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - BookConcierge - LibraryThing

A fascinating account of the Farallone Islands and the author's obsession with studying (or just seeing) the large sharks that frequent the waters around there. I think she was somewhat naive; but I probably would have done the same thing.

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - Lisa.Johnson.James - LibraryThing

Freaking AWESOME. Susan's experiences suck the reader right into the book, & the way she writes, you feel like you are right there with her. It's exciting, funny, makes you smile, makes you cringe ...

Contents

• Section 1: 1
• Section 2: 15
• Section 3: 45
• Section 4: 75
• Section 5: 99
• Section 6: 121
• Section 7: 141
• Section 8: 148
• Section 9: 148
• Section 10: 148
• Section 11: 148
• Section 12: 148
• Section 13: 148
• Section 14: 148
• Section 15: 148
• Section 16: 148
• Section 17: 159
• Section 18: 189
• Section 19: 209
• Section 20: 235
• Section 21: 253
• Section 22: 275
• Section 23: 285
• Section 24: 289

About the author

Susan Casey is the editor in chief ofO, The Oprah Magazine. She was previously the editor in chief ofSports Illustrated Womenand an editor at large for Time Inc.'s 180 magazine titles. She also served as the creative director ofOutside magazine where, with editor Mark Bryant, she led the magazine to three consecutive, history-making National Magazine Awards for General Excellence. AtOutside she was part of the editorial team that developed the stories behindInto Thin Air andThe Perfect Storm. Her writing has appeared inEsquire, Time, Fortune, andSports Illustrated. She is the author ofThe Devil's Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America's Great White Sharks, The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean, andVoices in the Ocean: A Journey into the Wild and Haunting World of Dolphins. She lives in New York City.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Devil's Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America's Great White Sharks
• Author: Susan Casey
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Macmillan, 2005
• ISBN: 080507581X, 9780805075816
• Length: 291 pages
• Subjects: Nature / Animals / Marine Life; Travel / Special Interest / Adventure