This was a bit of a weird one, though I’d say weird in a good and charming way. I never thought I’d have the chance to compare anything to Chester Anderson’s The Butterfly Kid, but Here Beside the Rising Tide is probably the closest I’ll come (certainly the closest I’ve come so far).

It’s the kind of book in which an alien creature dubbed a Squidoodle, casually evolves into a Squidinox by eating candy and eventually (when it must fight the Tentaggedon!) combines with other Squidinox into a Mega Squidinox. It is also the type of book in which a mother grapples with the grief of losing her own mother, the stress of having a demanding job with three kids, and the trauma inherent in divorce. Oh and there’s a time-traveling ten year-old and a sexy contractor too.

To say this book “has it all” is to severely underscore how much this book actually has.

It may seem like so many threads could never possibly be woven together coherently, or in a way that doesn’t just immediately “jump the shark” (oh I forgot to mention there are sharks too), but the book manages it all with a kind of playful confidence. A sort of let’s-be-kids-again kind of attitude which is fun and feels like it could not have come at a better time.

Speaking of kids, I’d say the three in this book are some of the best written children I’ve read in quite some time (if maybe ever). I always hear that writing children is a difficult task for authors (and my own experience bears this out somewhat), but Emily Jane makes it look effortless and easy. I’ll admit, I struggled a bit at times to pinpoint their age, but if anything this just added a bit of realism as I feel like IRL — whether they are more mature or less– kids never “act their age”. I really believe that it’s their inclusion which really makes the weirdness of everything which happens in this book not seem weird at all. Very cool.

For any interested, I felt there was also a bit of literary discourse happening with the main character, Jenni’s positioning as an author herself. I particularly enjoyed the following paragraph which not only nods at the whole plotting vs. pantsing dilemma many authors face, but plants a flag for Romance as a capital ‘L’ literary genre:

“Betsy did not understand how it just kind of came out like that firsthand. Everything produced by her own brain was deliberate, plotting, and methodical — consequence of her many decades of literary consumption, cultivation, and critique. People said that the romance genre wasn’t literary, but those people didn’t know what-the-Faulkner they were talking about. Romance was delightfully literary, and delightful in its capability of generating oodles and oodles of cash.”

Also, “what-the-Faulkner” is mine now. I’m keeping it.

Finally, the last part of this book which I enjoyed (and what initially caught my eye which I alluded to way back in my 2024 End of Year Book Tag) was the references here and there to the music of one of my favorite bands: The Grateful Dead. The title itself, Here Beside the Rising Tide, is a reference to this lyric from the song Uncle John’s Band:

Come hear Uncle John’s Band
by the riverside.
Got some things to talk about
Here beside the rising tide

I gave a bit of my history with the Grateful Dead’s music last week, and I think it’s fair to say that Emily Jane’s book is now a part of that history. From now on, every time I hear that lyric I will assuredly imagine happy little squid creatures twirling to the music.

I spotted a few other potential references, but I’ll post them at the end with a spoiler tag incase anyone wants to look for them on their own first before reading the one’s I caught.

Give ‘Here Beside the Rising Tide‘ a Read?

An enthusiastic yes from me. This book was just the right kind of weird, with just (squid) oodles of different, and seemingly strange but fun pieces combining together into something fresh and charmingly bizarre. Emily Jane has a real talent for writing children and participating in literary discourse in a way that is easy to read and not overbearing or pretentious. Finally, of course I enjoyed the inclusion of some references to The Grateful Dead and assuredly other jam bands as well (Lotus is also mentioned).

That’s all I have for this week! Has anyone read this one before? What was the weirdest part? Any Dead-Heads gonna give this one a shot? Anybody catch any references to other bands I missed? Also read on for the other Dead references I caught and please comment any others you find!

Until next time . . .

Spoilers for Grateful Dead references beyond this point . . .

One of the chapter/sections is entitled “Where Did the Time Go?“. Assumably a reference to the lyric from Uncle John’s Band:

Ain’t no time to hate,
Barely time to wait.
Whoa-oh, what I want to know,
where does the time go?

At one point Jenni has a dream in which:
“A bird alighted on the bicycle frame. A seagull, at first, but then it transformed into a blackbird. It opened its beak and a song slipped out. The children nodded, as if it sang a language they understood . . .”

I’m assuming this is probably the lyric:

It’s the same story the crow told me
It’s the only one he know —
like the morning sun you come
and like the wind you go

While most of these are from the song Uncle John’s Band, there is also a bit — which I wasn’t able to copy a quote for — where Jenni looks out over the beach and does not see the masses of squidinox we’ve become so used to over the course of the story. She questions whether or not they were ever real in the first place.

It seems likely this could just be a random coincidence, or I was thinking it might be a reference to a lyric from another Dead tune, The Music Never Stopped:

Keep on dancin through to daylight
Greet the mornin’ air with song
No one’s noticed, but the band’s all packed and gone
Was it ever here at all?

That’s all I managed to find. Please let me know in the comments if you spot anything else!