OFFERED SPRING 2006
non-fiction/adventure/memoir

DAY OF THE SHARK

Day of the Shark is a survival story, a life and death struggle with an intensity, attention to detail and market potential rivaling such recent best-sellers as, Into Thin Air, Touching the Void and The Perfect Storm.

On the morning of August 26, 1998, Jonathan Kathrein was dragged under the Pacific Ocean by a Great White Shark. The shark was probably fifteen feet long and it had Jonathan’s right leg, from his hip to his knee, in its jaws. Despite how crowded the beach was that day, nobody saw the shark take Jonathan under. As the fish bit down to the bone and shook him from side to side, Jonathan – alone, in pain and running out of air – made the decision to live. He fought back.

Earlier that morning, like millions of other beach-loving 16-year-old boys nearing the end of summer break, Jonathan grabbed for the car keys and bid his mother goodbye in the kitchen of their California home. Margaret Kathrein, like millions of other moms that late August morning, reminded her oldest son to have fun and drive carefully. Really, driving was her only true worry and concern as a parent. She didn’t count on the shark.

Day of the Shark is a collaboration between a mother and son. It is a touching coming-of-age story woven together with one the most dramatic and intense adventure/survival stories ever told. Before the shark took Jonathan under that day, he and Margaret were in the ebb and flow their lives. Margaret was happy and busy raising three, thriving boys. Jonathan, her oldest, had his first car, a best-friend and a new love of surfing. Though Margaret enjoyed watching Jonathan spread his wings and appreciated his cautious nature, she was as mindful as any mother of the myriad of dangers facing boys as they grow into men. She didn’t count on the shark.

It took surgeons over eight hours to close Jonathan’s wounds. They lost count after 200 stitches. The attack drew immediate media attention in the San Francisco Bay Area and word soon spread around the world. TV crews conducted interviews at his hospital bedside. He was flown to Germany to accept an award for Person of the Year.

Jonathan Kathrein, a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, is currently Executive Director of Future Leaders for Peace, a non-profit organization that teaches conflict prevention. He also travels extensively as a motivational and keynote speaker, drawing on his experience with the shark to inspire audiences to overcome challenges in their lives. Among the media outlets which have featured Jonathan and his story are: Sports Illustrated, Surfer, The Chicago Tribune, Dateline NBC, The Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, and The Oprah Winfrey Show.

Margaret Kathrein, an attorney, is an author, mother of three sons, board member and former international flight attendant. She and Jonathan are planning their next book, also a mother-son memoir, 45 Days to Baghdad, the story of a U.S. Marine.

[proposal, sample chapters available]

Day of The Shark- printable version