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Under the wave at Waimea

by Theroux, Paul,

Format: Print Book 2021
Availability: Available at 15 Libraries 16 of 18 copies

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Bethel Park Public Library Fiction FIC THEROUX Paul
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Monroeville Public Library Fiction THEROUX PAUL
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Shaler North Hills Library Fiction THEROUX
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Upper St. Clair Township Library Fiction FICTION THEROUX Paul
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Summary
"Theroux's work is like no one else's." -Francine Prose, New York Times Book Review



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.
Published Reviews
Booklist Review: "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."
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Publisher's Weekly Review: "In Theroux's immersive surfing bildungsroman (after Mother Land), a 60-something Triple Crown legend accidentally kills a homeless man with his car, and looks back on his life. Ten-year-old Joe Sharkey arrives in Hawaii with his father, a Special Forces colonel stationed there during the Vietnam War. Bullied at school for being a "haole," Sharkey finds release in surfing, his mentor a native Hawaiian surf guru called Uncle Sunshine. Showing an early aptitude for the sport, he becomes a competitive surfer. Sponsorship, prize money and endorsements follow as Sharkey travels the world--Tahiti, South Africa, California, Portugal--in search of the ultimate wave. Along the way, women are drawn to his legendary status and he befriends gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. Meanwhile, in the present, Sharkey and his girlfriend embark on a journey to learn more about the man Sharkey accidentally killed, traveling to Arkansas and California before a final reckoning in Hawaii's Waimea Bay. The past and present halves of the story don't really coalesce, but Sharkey makes for an enjoyably larger than life character in the mold of Theroux's Jack Flowers (Saint Jack) or Allie Fox (The Mosquito Coast). The author's fans will appreciate the perfectly rendered exotic setting, which takes the reader deep inside the Hawaiian surf culture. (Apr.)"
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Additional Information
Subjects Surfers -- Fiction.
Aging -- Fiction.
Drunk driving -- Fiction.
Manslaughter -- Fiction.
Waimea Bay (Oahu, Hawaii) -- Fiction.
Detective and mystery fiction.
Publisher Boston :Houghton Mifflin Harcourt,2021
Language English
Description 409 pages ; 24 cm
ISBN 9780358446286
0358446287
Other Classic View