PEN Center USA Fiction Award - Coming of Age, Life Change Events, Self-Realization 

WINNER OF THE 2016 DACTYL LITERARY FICTION AWARDWINNER OF THE 2015 IPPY FOR LITERARY FICTIONWINNER OF THE 2014 PEN CENTER USA FICTION AWARDFINALIST FOR THE 2014 OREGON BOOK AWARDFINALIST FOR THE 2014 CHAUTAUQUA PRIZE FINALIST FOR THE 2014 FOREWORD BOOK-OF-THE-YEAR AWARD, LITERARY FICTIONLONG-LISTED FOR THE 2014 KIRKUS FICTION PRIZETop 5 Fiction title of 2013 by Publishers Weekly and also their "Most Underrated Book of the Year"Selected by New York magazine as a top 10 book of 2013The Oregonian's #1 Northwest Book of 2013A Counterpunch 2013 top fiction pick A boy grew up beside a sea of hooks and he learned to swim in that sea and to notice the hooks as they rose and fell and twisted in the tides... What if you saw the world with all its signs and signals, its schedules, habits and goals, the matrix of friends, the unspoken codes of conduct emptied of everyday meaning. Imagine that the debris collected from the streets of your childhood spoke more urgently to you, with messages and wonders that compelled you to enter another world, a world whose broken pieces converged at the junctures of vision and illusion, of life and death. In this riveting, darkly humorous and sometimes harrowing novel, Christopher Westall, an alarmingly imaginative young man, experiences repeated trauma and transformation. His childhood has shattered into a thousand glints, shards, and tangled threads that are gathered and rewoven by the reader while following Christopher's pivotal journey from San Francisco to the mountains of Bhutan. As memory, dream, fear and resilience exert their tidal pulls, Christopher's life tilts, collides, reverses, dissolves and re-emerges, while risks and revelations glisten side-by-side in the depths of the Sea of Hooks. - from Amzon