More literary than my placement (on mystery-suspense shelf) would have you think. Lovely book and harrowing too. A passage: "It [the first wave of a set] was an unnerving spectacle, and a yet a thing to behold full of terror and fluid beauty. The amount of water involved was such that it was like watching a piece of the earth become liquid, as if in some cataclysm, or at the hour of creation. The wave rose first with great mass, like a hill, but this hill was made of liquid, in constant flux, and even as you watched it, it would change its form, turning itself to a long dark wall as the face went vertical and then beyond vertical as the creat began to feather and finally to pitch forward, to strike the water far out in front of the face--thus creating the vaunted green room of surfing myth--the place to be if you were to be there at all, on a board, at the eye of the storm, encompassed by the sound and the fury, bone dry in a place no one had ever been, or would be again, because when the wave was gone the place was gone too and would only exist in memory."
Are all human plans vanity in the face of nature and the twisted ways of life? Nunn seems to ask this question, focusing on fame, money, spirituality, revenge, and heroism showing them as faint comfort when it comes down. Compared with Straw Dogs and Deliverance this excellently plotted and characterized tale of foolishness, revenge, and violence set in the surreal beauty of the unforgiving wilderness of Northern California and Southern Oregon also treads ground similar to Denis Johnson’s Already Dead though much less fuzzy and David Lynch like(but not by much, some spooky stuff is in this book). Nunn writes with authority here.
Do You like book Dogs Of Winter (1998)?
A remarkable story of obsession and redemption by way of the surfing world. An aging surfing legend who is half Brian Wilson (in Dennis' body) and half Captain Ahab recruits and leads an unlikely group of characters in the search for the holy grail of waves. His obsession disturbs the natural balance of the world they traverse with consequences. Kem Nunn is a master artist at creating memorable, believable characters and weaving them seamlessly into original, gripping plots. The young hotshot surfer dude with a unique body piercing is not to be missed. So turn off Dancing With The Stars, back away from the remote control and start reading this book. Now.
—John
