After moving from Washington, DC, to the Jersey Shore, a former speechwriter for President Obama starts surfing at the age of thirty-fiveâthe rough equivalent of beginning guitar lessons on your deathbedâand must turn for help to the only other surfer he knows: a tattooed, truck-driving, Joe Rogan superfan who happens to be his brother-in-law.
David Litt, the Yale-educated writer with a sensible fear of sharks, and Matt, the daredevil electrician with a truck and two motorcycles, had always coexisted from a comfortable distance as brothers-in-law. Yet, as David wallowed in existential dread while Americaâs crises piled up, he couldnât help but notice that Matt seemed perfectly happy. When he wasnât making money rewiring Jersey Shore beach homes, Matt was surfing waves at his favorite spots in the state.
Quietly, David started taking surfing lessons. For a few months, he suffered through wipeouts on waves the height of daffodils. But to his surprise, he soon became obsessed. And once he got a sense of the ways that fully committing to surfing could change him both in the water and on land, he set his sights on an unlikely goal: riding a big wave at Hawaiiâs famously dangerous North Shore. To get there, heâd need Mattâs help.
At a moment when finding common ground seems more elusive than ever, this moving and poignant buddy comedy in the tradition of Bill Brysonâs A Walk in the Woods, and love letter to surfing in the vein of William Finneganâs Barbarian Days, is a story about embracing the thingsâand the peopleâthat scare us most.