Kevin McAleer

Surferboy Kevin McAleer

Fiction. California interest. Steve wants to be a surfer--one of those demi-gods who walk on water. But for a kid from the San Fernando Valley who's scared of the ocean this is no easy task. Through his encounters with tough Malibu locals, shady surfboard designers, haole-hating Hawaiians, uptight surf stars, sex-hungry surf groupies and stoned big-wave riders, Steve learns the humorous as well as the darker side of surfing. With finely honed irony and a lightness of touch, Kevin McAleer tells a story of friendship, coming of age in the 1970s, and the fascination of surfing--while also imparting a wealth of knowledge that can compete with any how-to book on the sport (including an extensive surf glossary as appendix). As SURFERBOY takes us on a ride up and down the waves, we experience both the ups and downs of the surfing life, with the author making short work of that romanticized image of good vibrations and beach babes. Yet nevertheless, by book's end, we still have a wistful yearning for it all.--literaturkritik.de Perhaps the saying is true--that happiness makes you stupid. Maybe surfers are so happy that they should only start writing about surfing after they've stopped. Kevin McAleer, who grew up in California, has given us an autobiographical novel well worth reading.--Mare Kevin McAleer has written the first pure surf novel--the portrait of a subculture with roots in Hawaii, its boom during the 1960s, through to the 1970s and Surf Punks and New Wavers and the scene's utter commercialization.--GEO SURFERBOY is one of those novels where after just two sentences you're so deep into it that you'd swear you've got sand in your undies.--Radio Fritz SURFERBOY is a cleverly arranged bildungsroman and the story of a subculture's decline and fall.--Berliner Tagesspiegel