Halibut on the Moon

They pull onto Highway 101 going north, driving along the water. The waves white and breaking but so tame. No fetch here to build, and the water shallow everywhere along the edges. He and Doug commercial fished for a year on a boat Jim had built, sixty-three-foot aluminum. His dream of escaping dentistry.

"Nothing compared to what we saw, huh?" he says. "The waves."

"Yeah. We saw some waves alright."

"I thought we were going down that time in the straits."

"Yeah. I thought so too. That looked pretty bad."

They were long-lining for halibut in the straits between the Aleutians, at the edge of the Bering Sea, and the line caught on the bottom. The problem was that the seas were thirty feet and breaking, and this line was pinning them down in sick ways. Whenever a wave rose beneath, they were pulled down into it, pressurizing.

"You know, it's a bit like that," Jim says. "The depression, the low points. It's like how our boat was held back and as everything around rises it only pressurizes. It's something like that. Not a perfect description, but something you've felt anyway. Do you remember that?"

"I remember. A feeling inside isn't like that, though."

"Oh, it's much worse. Much stronger. A thirty-foot wave is nothing. A few tens of thousands of pounds of aluminum held down through a wave is something light by comparison."

DAVID VANN's internationally-bestselling books have been published in 23 languages, won 14 prizes, and appeared on 83 Best Books of the Year lists in a dozen countries. A former Guggenheim fellow, he is currently a Professor at the University of Warwick in England and Honorary Professor at the University of Franche-Comté in France.

Praise for Halibut on the Moon
One of The Listener's Best Books of 2019

"Raw and heartbreaking... Generously sharing a poignant, powerful story, Vann's evocative words help us understand the erratic and illogical thinking associated with mental illness."-San Francisco Examiner

"Vann is an extraordinary writer."-Sydney Morning Herald

"Vann's unrelentingly harrowing descriptions of Jim's depressive state recalls David Foster Wallace's darkest moments. Mixing beautiful prose with unremitting bleakness, this difficult, deeply moving work will affect all who read it."-Booklist

"Affecting... A moving portrait of a family dealing with loss before it happens and of the harrowing ways depression can disrupt countless lives."-Kirkus Reviews

Praise for Aquarium
"Vann's provocative prose is filled with a sense of wonder and beauty, even when the lives he describes are tragic."-Los Angeles Times

"Elegantly written and fiercely imagined...at times, this is a painful novel, but its beauty propels it toward redemption."-Chicago Tribune

"A coming-of-age story that explores the limits of love and forgiveness. Vann submerges you so deeply in Caitlin's world, you'll be gasping for breath when you finally surface."-Entertainment Weekly

"David Vann's work has a spare, parable-like quality...[he] writes with deft control and a gift for prose propelled as effortlessly as a school of fish."-Financial Times