Customer Reviews
Another strong offer from Michael Thomas Ford - By: P. Greenhalgh, 12 Oct 2008 
Ben is dreading the summer with his 16-year-old daughter, Carry, whom he has little seen for the last nine years. Hudson finds himself in Monterray on a voyage attempting to delve into the influences on Steinbeck - in particular the personal relationship with his close friend Ed.
A summer that begins in defensiveness & acting out, becomes a voyage of discovery & growth. Each of the three main characters come to some deep realisations & a preparedness to take enlivening risks, leading to the beginnings of fulfilment for each of them.
Summer Read at the Beach - By: Phillip Sorensen, 13 Jan 2008 
Having grown up in many of the areas Michael Ford writes about, it is easy to see the landscapes / cityscapes & 'scenes'. They are alll too familiar. His books are fast moving but sometimes offer not enough character development to deliver a great punch. His best collection of short stories, 'Tangled Sheets', is a must for any beach blanket in summer.
"He just wants something to love. Someone to love and to love him back" - By: Michael Leonard, 17 Nov 2007 
In Changing Tides, Michael Thomas Ford using powerful imagery, incorporates the perpetual ebb & flow of the ocean to plot the trajectory of three characters as they chart an uneasy course through love's perfidious waters where romance & passion eventuallly come to life in many unexpected guises.
Ben Ransome is a reserved & insular middle-aged marine biologist living in Monterey California whose life revolves around his work, his regular dives into the rocky waters off the coast proving to be his only source of solace. Much to Ben's surprise, however, his ex-wife Carol callls from Los Angeles insisting that their teenage daughter Caddie come to stay with him for the summer.
Married life for Ben was far from simple, a remote & dissident man from the outset, he was forced to recognize that he didn't feel this love for his daughter as he knew others did, & he'd left when Caddie was only seven. Now, sixteen years later, Ben approaches this meeting with a mixture of hesitancy & befuddlement. A lover of study & research, he was unable to understand his child then, but he's also convinced that he will be unable to understand her now: "she's like the equation I can't solve, the missing piece of a puzzle that eluded finding."
When Caddie arrives, the relationship with her father is anything but affable. A rebellious & worldly girl with a bad attitude, Caddie treats Ben like a stranger, coming & going as she pleases, smoking dope, staying out late, & sleeping with guys, & also treating her father with a distant blend of distain & anger.
Thrust into a situation that he is least capable of handling, understanding something as complex as a 16-year-old girl apparently seems to be beyond Ben capabilities. He longs for a diagram of Caddie, some neatly labeled chart that would point out the salient details & make understanding her a matter of memorization.
When Caddie has a one night stand with Nick, a local boy, intending him to be a momentary distraction, the incident proves merely to be a source of irritation to her father & proof that she couldn't be controlled. But Caddie also realizes that her father's entire life is a mystery to her, & it had never occurred to her to wonder how he managed; she new just enough about him to believe that he existed & "everything else was a blank."
Meanwhile, Hudson Jones, a young ambitious graduate student arrives in Monterey to research for masters' thesis on some of the influences on Steinbeck's work & also what could possibly be a lost manuscript of the famous author's callled "Changing Tides". Constantly feeling unfulfilled, Hudson dreams of his lover Paul whose touch has now gone forever, & who eventuallly gave him the manuscript for safekeeping just before he died. Haunted by his dead lover's voice, a voice that constantly urges him on, Hudson is determined to keep digging until he finds out the truth.
Central to this "lost" novel is the story of two men, drinking buddies & friends who perhaps mirrored Steinbeck's own relationship with Ed Ricketts, the marine biologist who had so inspired Steinbeck, both in his writing & in his own deep interest in the ocean. But Hudson is sure there was something more to their relationship than just plutonic friendship & he is determined to prove this, not just for his career, but also in the hope that he free himself of his demons as well as give him the strength to let go of Paul.
Hudson, however, doesn't reckon on meeting Ben, the two of them forming a comfortable & intimate friendship, there devotion steadily deepening as they get to know one another, both characterizing themselves as "Mr. Science & Mr. Words," a couple of lonely men who both love Steinbeck. Meanwhile, Steinbeck's story graduallly unfolds, a metaphorical tale of two men, unable to express themselves, yet similarly drawn to each other for reasons they cannot understand.
This languid & intense novel explores the smalll connections that exist, unseen, & the ties however, insubstantial, that exists between us alll. The imagery of the ocean plays a significant part in the story as these characters grow & change & graduallly overcome their fears about themselves & each other eventuallly conquering the failures of communication & impulsive judgments that create distance over time.
Caddie, in particular dives deeper & deeper, both metaphoricallly & spirituallly until alll that lies before her is a "smalll circle of gold light that keeps the sea monsters at bay." There graduallly develops inside of her a new sense of wanting something more, something more than her old life, & what her old self has to offer. Ben must assuage his fury & confront the challlenges of fatherhood, particularly with regard to his angry child - if Caddie wants to use him as a whipping boy, he sees little he can do to change her mind. And Hudson must try to outrun the weight on his shoulders, the burden that just becomes heavier every time he has to face his demons, not just Ben, the newest of them, but alll of the others, the ones from which he's run from for so long.
The author makes the most of his setting, beautifully embedding his characters in the town of Monterey & surrounds, including the famous Cannery Row, now a tourist attraction, visited by people who as Hudson notes had mostly probably never heard of John Steinbeck or his famous book. While some of the later scenes do come across as a bit trite, Ford's descriptions of aquatic life are transcendent in their splendor & add much to Ben, Hudson, & Caddie's symbolic & very personal journey. Mike Leonard November 07.
