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From legendary writer Paul Theroux comes an atmospheric novel following a big-wave surfer as he confronts aging, privilege, mortality, and whose lives we choose to remember.
Now in his sixties, big-wave surfer Joe Sharkey has passed his prime and is losing his "stoke." The younger surfers around the breaks on the north shore of Oahu still idolize the Shark, but his sponsors are looking elsewhere. One night, while driving home from a bar after one too many, Joe accidentally kills a stranger near Waimea, a tragedy that sends his life out of control. As the repercussions of the accident spiral ever wider, Joe's devoted girlfriend, Olive, throws herself into uncovering the dead man's identity and helping Joe find vitality and refuge in the waves again.
Set in the lush, gritty underside of an island paradise readers rarely see, UNDER THE WAVE AT WAIMEA offers a dramatic, affecting commentary on privilege, mortality, and the lives we choose to remember. It is a masterstroke by one of the greatest writers of our time.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
April 13, 2021 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780358446385
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780358446385
- File size: 1302 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Starred review from April 1, 2021
Devotees of Kem Nunn's Tapping the Source (1984) who have been searching for the next great surfing novel need search no more. In flowing, lyrical prose, Theroux celebrates the sheer individualistic exhilaration of riding waves--""a man surfing, moving in an easy crouch through turbulence . . . keeping a fraction ahead of its roll."" But surfers must live on shore, too, and this story of surfing champion Joe Sharkey captures not only the pure pleasure he feels in the water, but also the mess and muddle that nearly engulf him on land. After beginning with Sharkey in his 60s, reeling from injuries suffered in a car crash in which he accidentally killed a homeless man, the narrative flashes back to Joe's tumultuous coming-of-age as a bullied haole in Hawaii, eventually finding himself on the waves of Oahu's North Shore and, later, on still-bigger waves around the globe. Along the way, he befriends Hunter Thompson, a man whose own search for ""the biggest, the best, the loudest, the craziest, the weirdest"" links him indelibly with nonreader Joe. With the aid of ever-supportive lover Olive, Joe attempts to learn more about the homeless man he killed and thereby make peace with life after surfing. There is a bone-deep melancholia here, but it never quite drowns the profound, life-giving joy of a man who finds a way, however fleeting, to carve his name on water.COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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