▶▶▶ Surf Is Where You Find It

Monday, October 4, 2010

Surf Is Where You Find It

Surf Is Where You Find It Review

I saw Gerry Lopez put his feet in cement two or three years ago in Huntington Beach as he was inducted into the walk of fame near the Pier, and it was a thrill to be there when he was being so honored. He was low key and endearingly shy at that ceremony, so I wasn't surprised that his prose style in this book was effectively understated, but I WAS surprised how good the writing and story-telling actually were. I didn't know until this book that Gerry's dad was a journalist, which helps explain the quality of the book. (More than once I scanned the acknowledgments to see if it was written "with" someone, it was so good, but Gerry authored the thing himself. This in a world where a "journalist" like Dan Rather has to have a co-writer help him produce books.) Jack London actually surfed, however I don't know that he ever wrote about it, but if he had, he would have produced something like SURF IS WHERE YOU FIND IT. Repeatedly I felt like I was reading a Jack London adventure (and at times a Hemingway adventure), such was the book's quality. And Gerry is also a great comic writer, because his tale of helping 6-year-old Laird Hamilton bury Rory Russell's new board when it washed ashore, and then telling Rory that someone probably stole it, then watching him run around panicked, had me laughing out loud. (This might sound cruel...until you read elsewhere in the book what Rory's like!) My only criticism would be that some of the philosophical musings that close some chapters seem, at times, tacked on. But that's a minor quibble. Surfers will love this book, but I think also people will love it who just love to read well-written, exciting, and endearingly human adventures and vignettes, even if such readers have no actual interest in surfing.