A surfer once told me that surfing isn’t a sport or hobby, but a way of life. He became philosophical about it: the majesty of the ocean, the power and beauty of the wave… (and then, true to form, he lit up a big fat doobie.) The surf-buddy movie Point Break illustrates the same connection between wave riding and introspective analyses of consciousness. “You’re not going to start chanting, are you?” asks Keanu Reeves. Patrick Swayze laughs. “I might!”
Allan Weisbecker doesn’t chant, but he can put into words exactly what it feels like to ride a wave. He also puts into words what it’s like to captain a ship loaded down with a couple million dollars’ worth of pot into someone’s front lawn, for lack of a suitable offload dock, near Long Island Sound.
He has created, in this autobiographical adventure, a fascinating and eminently readable journal of his 2-year odyssey into Central America, a search both for a long-lost surfer friend, and the perfect wave. It’s at once a road story, a travelogue, and a nonfiction fantasy. There is a maturity, or an honesty, to the storytelling that makes Weisbecker a sympathetic character even when he’s violating international law as well as the ocean he loves so dearly. I laughed a lot. I also felt like I began to understand the lifestyle that is surfing.
Weisbecker finds both of the things he sets out to find. In the process, he also creates a wonderfully entertaining story. I recommend this book. I so enjoyed it, I’m planning to read the author’s earlier novel, Cosmic Banditos.
(The Amazon page for this book contains more positive reviews, one of which reads so much like what I’ve written here that I wish I’d seen it first, and saved myself the arduous process of composition.)
Patronize these links, man:
posted to area: Non-Fiction
updated: 2004-03-19 19:41:18
