Sidetracked

I was just about to give up finding a book at the library — in fact, I had made it all the way to authors beginning with “W” — when I saw a book titled “Dawn Patrol.”

Being a surfer, this, of course, intrigued me. Because any surfer knows that dawn patrol refers to those who get out in the water early in the morning, hoping to score the best, non-windy waves. So I picked up the novel, and, sure enough, there was a surfer on the cover. Then, after reading the summary, I was hooked.

The 2008 surf noir book, written by Don Winslow, is so spot-on surf-wise, you just know the author has to be a surfer. (He is.) And, it turns out, he’s also a pretty good writer.

The book focuses on Boone Daniels (Boone is a nickname given to him by fellow surfers), a private eye, who would much rather surf than work. In fact, he only takes the case of a missing stripper because his cash flow is negative.

This, of course, poses a problem for Daniels, because a mackin’ swell is headed to San Diego, his home base. And he doesn’t want to miss the Stoke of the decade.

I won’t tell you too much more — largely because I’m still reading it. But so far it’s been fun, with inspiring descriptions of the Stoke and a lead character who’s very Dude-like. Reading it actually made me want to get out and surf.

Curious, I looked up some interviews to see if Winslow talked about surfing. After all, another novel he wrote, “Winter of Frankie Machine” — which was optioned for a movie by Robert DeNiro — also deals with a surfing character, this time a former mob hit man.

“Mostly, I’m a totally crap surfer,” he told the web site Curled Up With a Good Book. “But I’ve been doing it in one form or another my entire life. Mostly, I do it just for fun, but, yeah, I think the ocean does help me focus and relax.”

In an interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune, he discussed the conflict surfers like his fictional Daniels have between waves and work.

“(’Dawn Patrol’) is in a lot of ways about perpetual childhood,” he said. “It’s kind of the Peter Pan syndrome that exists in surfing, where you’re doing this when you’re 11 and you’re doing it when you’re 50, and a lot of times you don’t grow up. But then you’re forced to.”

Winslow, 54, is an interesting character himself. A former child actor, he worked as a private eye and a safari guide in Kenya before becoming a full-time writer.

While reading about Winslow, I also discovered another surf noir novelist: Kem Nunn is a surfing writer whose works inspired the HBO show “John From Cincinnati,” about a crew of Southern California surfers. And while I’m dropping literary names, critically acclaimed novelist Thomas Pynchon also dabbled in surf noir recently with his book “Inherent Vice,” which has also been called a “Big Lebowski” with surfers.

Posted on November 10th, 2009 by Pat
Filed under: Books, Surf stuff