FInnegan began his love affair with surfing at the age of nine in Hawaii, at about the same time I took became obsessed with surfing as well, back in the 1960's, thus my interest. His love of surfing, however, consumed him for the next fifty years as early in life, his twenties, he became a surf bum, in search of the Perfect Wave, like the movie THE ENDLESS SUMMER. It took him all over the world and gave him fodder for both magazine articles and later books, a couple about South Africa during Apartheid, others of his life in other third world countries. Because the book is ostensible about surfing, he spends a great deal of time describing the waves, his rides, and wipe outs from San Francisco, to South Africa, to Australia, to Bali. I have to admit it got boring after awhile and the most interesting part of the book was his observations of places he lived, the characters he ran in to in his quest for the perfect wave. He ends up living in Manhattan in the 1990's and 2000's but surfs Montauk, at the tip of Long Island, in all kinds of weather, never putting his board away despite being in his 60's. He still writes for The New Yorker. Still surfs.
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