Under the Wave at Waimea

Description

From legendary writer Paul Theroux comes an atmospheric novel following a big-wave surfer in Hawaii 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. The younger surfers around the breaks on the north shore of Oahu still call him the Shark, but his sponsors are looking elsewhere. When Joe accidentally hits and kills a man near Waimea while driving home from a bar after a night of drinking, it seems he'll never rebound. Under the direction of his devoted girlfriend Olive, he throws himself into uncovering his victim's story. But what they find in Max Mulgrave is anything but expected- a shared history - and refuge in the waves.

Paul Theroux has written many works of fiction and travel writing, including the modern classics The Great Railway Bazaar, The Old Patagonian Express, My Secret History and The Mosquito Coast. He won the Edward Stanford Award for Outstanding Contribution to Travel Writing 2020. Paul Theroux divides his time between Cape Cod and the Hawaiian islands.

Kaleidoscopic. Extraordinary. A frightening ride to the bottom of the soul of a man with a previously unexamined life. This is contemporary Hawaii as it's rarely evoked, with surfing strangely near its troubled heart -- William Finnegan, author of "Barbarian Days", winner of the Pulitzer Prize Theroux's new novel is a full-fat epic -- John Self * The Observer * Superb... Under the Wave at Waimea immerses you so elaborately in its watery world that you may start seeing surfing as just another guise for life itself... This probing tale of a man who's come undone and the strong, stark woman who thinks she can reassemble him is one of Theroux's best novels -- Michael Upchurch * The Seattle Times *