All for a Few Perfect Waves

February 11, 2008
In this vivid biography, Rensin (The Mailroom: Hollywood History from the Bottom Up
) takes on a daunting task: to clarify the clouded myth of legendary surfer Miki Dora. Growing up in post-WWII California, the half-Hungarian Dora came to surfing in the 1950s and '60s, when it was still an oddball pastime of random kooks riding longboards made out of redwoods off nearly empty Los Angeles beaches. Dora's grace and signature style brought him attention as surfing grew into the central image of the California “endless summer.” Yet Dora was no ordinary beach bum, and his restless intelligence led him around the world in search of waves as yet unsullied by the masses. Dora also possessed a darker side and had no qualms about ripping off even his closest friends. His credit card scams eventually landed him in prison. Rensin faces a difficult task in tracking down an elusive and paranoid target (Dora died of pancreatic cancer in early 2002). After a muddled introduction in which Dora is compared to everyone from Muhammad Ali to the beat poets, Rensin lets Dora's friends, lovers and rivals tell the story. The result brings a remarkable focus to a man whose greatest accomplishments were written on water. Dora's life tracked the explosion of celebrity culture and it's hard not to sympathize with Dora's ambivalence about his fame.