Author Lindsay Hill will read at the Manzanita Writers' Series Sept. 20.

Manzanita — To kick off the fall Manzanita Writers’ Series, the Hoffman Center presents author Lindsay Hill, who will read from his book “Sea of Hooks” at 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 20. Due to renovations at the Hoffman Center, this event has been moved to the Pine Grove Community House located at 225 Laneda Ave. Admission for the evening is $5.

“Sea of Hooks” is a riveting, darkly humorous and sometimes harrowing novel where 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.

“Sea of Hooks” was named best book of 2013 by the Oregonian and in the top 10 books of 2013 by New York Magazine. Gabe Habash of Publishers Weekly declared it the most underrated book of 2013. “It’s one of the best books I’ve read in years,” he writes. “That’s it, I’m out of superlatives. Read ‘Sea of Hooks’.” The magazine named it one of the top five books of 2013.

“‘Sea of Hooks’ is brilliant. Mr. Hill, a sometime banker and longtime poet, spent 20 years writing ‘Sea of Hooks’ a novel so audacious, so intricately constructed that it was a reading experience unlike any I’ve ever had,” wrote Rosemary and Reading Glasses’ Carolyn Oliver, an editor, proofreader, writer and blogger. “And it completely reinvents the bildungsroman in the process … It’s a novel that proves that the complexities of one young man’s daily life, his preoccupations and his nightmares and above all, his compassion, can be extraordinarily fascinating, suspenseful and revelatory.”

Hill was born in San Francisco and graduated from Bard College. Since 1974, he has published six books of poetry, and his work has appeared in a variety of literary journals. “Sea of Hooks” is Hill’s first novel and was published by McPherson & Company in November 2013. His other writing and editorial projects include the production of a series of recordings of innovative writing under the Spoken Engine label, and co-editing with Paul Naylor the literary journal Facture. Since leaving a career in banking, Hill has worked in the nonprofit sector. Hill and his wife, Nita, an artist, live in Portland.

Following Hill’s reading and Q&A, there will be an open mic where up to nine local writers will read for five minutes from their original work.

The Writers’ Series Reading Group will meet the Thursday prior to Hill’s reading at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 18 at the Manzanita Library located at 571 Laneda Ave. The public is invited to bring a friend to both events.