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When he's eleven years old, he meets Ivan Loon…a year older and full of bravado.
For the next few years , the boys grow up together, grow together, grow apart. Their friendship develops around water, initially the river and then the ocean. Tagging along with the local surfer gang they then fall in with an aging ageing hippy (does 36 count as agingageing? probably, to a teenager) who surfs like a dancer…alone, elegant, beyond the norm. Mentored by the guru-like figure and angered by his ill-tempered wife, they become ever-more ensnared in his world view. Along the way , they confront their fears and take to unknown waters.
The story is a simple coming of age tale, following Pike from his meeting with Loon until their final parting. For most of the book , the drama is all in the ocean – the waves, the reefs, the dangers and risks, and the injuries. Metaphors are never far from the surface though: from the obviousness of the names Pikelet, Loonie, Sando…through the calling the town Sawyer and the youthful river antics so reminiscent of Huck & Tom…to the struggle against nature…against the waves, against oneself.
The surf scenes are utterly mesmerising. Even for someone not fully following all of the terminology, it's impossible not to be gripped by the power of the wave, and the fear of it, and the reasons for being out there in the first place.
The blurb speaks of immediacy and grace – I can't disagree. Read at a single sitting, I was captivated.
If I have a criticism it would be that the transition from the boy to the man we met at the beginning is too swiftly dealt with, only surface-skimmed, and I felt a little short-changed by that. There's an antagonism in the early pages whose relevance I don't quite grasp. But that's about what isn't in the book: what it is in it is elegant, beautiful and surprisingly powerful.
I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to The Bookbag.