Published to rave reviews in hardcover and purchased by DreamWorks in a major film deal, The Big One is a spellbinding and richly atmospheric work of narrative journalism in the tradition of Friday Night Lights . Here is the story of a community—Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts—and a sporting event—the island’s legendary Striped Bass & Bluefish Derby—that is rendered with the same depth, color, and emotional power of the best fiction. Among the characters, we meet: Dick Hathaway, a crotchety legend who once caught a bluefish from a helicopter and was ultimately banned for cheating; Janet Messineo, a recovering alcoholic who says that striped bass saved her life; Buddy Vanderhoop, a boastful Native American charter captain who guides celebrity anglers like Keith Richards and Spike Lee; and Wyatt Jenkinson, a nine-year-old fishing fanatic whose mother is battling brain cancer. At the center of it all is five-time winner Lev Wlodyka, a cagey local whose next fish will spark a storm of controversy and throw the tournament into turmoil. Much more than just a book for fishing enthusiasts, The Big One is an exhilarating story of passion and obsession—and a powerful testament to the dreams that keep us all going. The Big One An Island, an Obsession, and the Furious Pursuit of a Great Fish By David Kinney Grove Atlantic, Inc. Copyright © 2009 David Kinney All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-8021-4476-8 Contents Prologue: The Chase, 1 838 Hours, 2 "Don't Tell Him Any Secrets!", 3 A Black Hole for Fish, 4 "Sleep When You Die", 5 Leadbelly, 6 Prayer to the Great Fish Gods, 7 Yo-Yos in Paradise, 8 Of Fish and Fists, 9 "I'll Take Ten Fricking Polygraph Tests", 10 I Fish, Therefore I Lie, 11 "There Is a Black Cloud Over this Fish", 12 Till Death Do Us Part, 13 Hardcore Derby Heartbreak, 14 "Menemsha Rules!", Epilogue: Winter, Afterword to the Paperback Edition, Acknowledgments, Notes, Conversation with the Author, CHAPTER 1 838 Hours Grown men have cried over the derby. They have ignored their wives for week after week, sleepwalked through work day after day, stayed up all night long, skipped out on their jobs altogether, drawn unemployment, burned through every last day of their vacation time, downed NoDoz and Red Bull and God knows what else. They have spied on their rivals and lied to their friends. They have told off strangers and cheated like lowlife bums. If you believe the conspiracy theorists, they have prosecuted bogus charges of rules breaking to get their adversaries tossed from the competition. People have died fishing the derby. In 1993, four anglers — two fathers and their young sons — drowned when their boat sank in heavy swells on the second-to-last day of the contest. In 1947, a Boston businessman crashed his plane trying out a contemporary fad: spotting schools of bass from the air, then landing on the beach and casting away at them. A nearby fisherman rushed to give first aid but couldn't save the man. "All that," he lamented, "for an old striped bass." An old striped bass, yes, but it's not only that. Catch a winner in the Vineyard's beloved annual fishing contest and they'll etch your name on the all-time roster of champions. You'll earn a spot in a tournament history book that starts during the Truman administration. It's something like taking the green jacket at the Masters. "I'm after derby glory," says Dave Skok, a professional fly tier and two-time derby winner. "That's what it's all about for me." For a certain class of Vineyarder (and aspiring Vineyarder), for those who haven't already made their millions and plunked them down on the massive trophy mansions so fashionable on the island today, winning the derby is as close to immortality as they're likely to get. The conventional wisdom about modern-day Martha's Vineyard goes something like this: popular summer tourist destination; propelled into the national consciousness when U.S. senator Edward Kennedy drove off Chappaquiddick's Dike Bridge in 1969; backdrop for the movie Jaws; presidential vacation spot for Bill and Hillary Clinton; one- time address of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis; host to A-list cocktail parties, yachting regattas, and presidential campaign fund-raisers; land of multimillion-dollar mansions; playground for the fabulously rich and famous, whose ranks of visitors and residents (past and present) have included James Cagney, Ted Danson, James Taylor, Carly Simon, Billy Joel, William and Rose Styron, John Updike, Art Buchwald, David McCullough, David Letterman, Diane Sawyer, Mike Wallace, Walter Cronkite, and Lady Di. All of that is true, as far as it goes. But the place is not quite so flashy as its press would suggest. The island's moneyed class has traditionally been low-key — this is not the Hamptons; one writer called its vibe "reverse-chic" — and after the summer is over these ranks seem to be outnumbered by the middle class and the working class and the anonymous. T