Under the Wave at Waimea

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.

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