The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud

Did You Know?

• A film adaptation starring Zac Efron, Amanda Crew and Charlie Tahan began production in 2009.
• Kim Basinger played Charlie and Sam's mother in the film adaptation.
• The film was produced by Marc Platt and directed by Burr Steers.

Synopsis

Fifteen-year-old Charlie St. Cloud and his twelve-year-old brother Sam, along with their pet beagle Oscar, steal their neighbor's Ford Country Squire to drive to a 1991 Red Sox baseball game in Boston against the New York Yankees. After the game, while crossing the General Edward's Bridge on the Saugus River, Charlie looks at the Moon to check if Sam was right that it appeared larger that night. Distracted, Charlie does not see an oncoming 18-wheeler. The impact sends the brothers and Oscar tumbling down the road; Oscar is crushed. Both boys die and find themselves near the cemetery in Marblehead, their hometown. Sam is frightened, and Charlie promises they will never abandon each other. However, a religious paramedic named Florio Ferrente resuscitates Charlie in an ambulance, and Charlie continues living. Thirteen years later, Charlie works as a spirit medium at the Waterside cemetery. Each evening at dusk he goes to a nearby forest to play with Sam's ghost. Tess Carroll, a woman planning to sail around the world in a yacht, ignores her captain's advice and steers into a storm a week before her departure. The storm flips her ship, leaving her clinging upside down. Tess appears at the cemetery where her father is buried, hears Charlie banging trash can covers to scare geese, and they talk; Charlie invites her to dinner. The next day, while walking her dog, Tess realizes people ignore her and cannot hear her. Three days later, at lunch, an officer announces that Tess's boat is missing. Charlie is shocked at the possibility that Tess is dead. Every boater in town, including Charlie, searches the harbor for Tess's body. Charlie questions his sanity. When everyone gives up, Charlie, with Sam's help, finds Tess's body. She is taken to a hospital, where doctors stabilize her in a deep coma.