What’s in a name? The Tide: Deadrise

Let’s be honest. Deadrise is the perfect name for a zombie-esque apocalyptic novel. Now in The Tide the dead aren’t being reanimated like your typical Zed fest. Still it’s a damn cool name, and I love it, but there’s something more to the name than a simple reference to reanimated corpses.

As some of you know, I spent the better part of five years living and working in Maryland a short drive away from the Chesapeake Bay. The Bay is a wonderful ecological and historical part of the United States. I’ve visited Fort McHenry which played a famous role in the Battle of Baltimore. Francis Scott Key wrote “The Star Spangled Banner” about the flag whipping in the wind over the Chesapeak Bay fort.The bay itself connects over a hundred rivers and streams, and it contains a host of wildlife that rely on the habitats within it and surrounding it. I love driving over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge going from Annapolis toward the Eastern Shore of Maryland and passing over Kent Island. You’ve no doubt gotten a taste of these places in The Tide. So what does this have to do with Deadrise?

A significant portion of the story takes place in and around the bay, of course. And Deadrise is a sort of homage to the Chesapeake Bay deadrise, which is a fishing boat historically used in the Bay. Fishermen used (and still use) the crafts for everything from fishing to crabbing and oystering (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesapeake_Bay_deadrise). You can read more about the boats on the Wikipedia page, along with a brief explanation of the nautical denotation of “deadrise.”

So there you have it. A name layered like an onion, fitting for The Tide. Multiple significant meanings related to The Tide. Most importantly, though, is the question: Will the Hunters rise from the dead and take what is rightfully theirs?