Under the Wave at Waimea by Paul Theroux

​    For the kind of a killer vacation one may never get to go on, this book seemed magical. It’s all about the waves, from title to cover to contents. And about one man who has made chasing and riding the waves his entire life. Joe Sharkey, the perfectly named protagonist, is a sort of aquatic animal with a sole purpose to his life. A purpose he has pursued for decades to great success, but now he is his 60s and a tragedy makes him pause and reflect on his life.
    And we, the readers, get dragged along for the ride.
    It hasn’t always been smooth surfing for Joe, he struggled to fit in with the local islanders from the time he was just a young white boy there, a military brat, an outsider. Eventually he discovered surfing and never looked back. It became his entire life. And a good life, too, as he became an accomplished wave rider, with sponsorships and fans. A comfortable life too, with a financial cushion from his parents to have as a safety net. An easy and a mostly happy life of a man who has been fortunate enough to follow his bliss for most of his years.
     It made Joe an easy going, relaxed local fixture, popular with everyone, including the ladies. Now his current squeeze, a woman 24 years his junior, seems to be a more serious presence in his life than most of her predecessors and she finds Joe at his absolute lowest following a vehicular crash in which he kills a man, a drunken bum on a bike, or so it seems.
     The guilt wrecks Joe and nothing in his life seems to go right afterwards, so he sets off to find out who the man was, in an effort to put things right, to honor the dead.
      So the book has three acts, present day Sharkey, Sharkey childhood to present day and Sharkey playing the guilt driven detective.
      It also has plenty of surfing. Tons of surfing, really. It’s as close as one can get to surfing without getting their feet wet.
       Overall, it’s a good read, it’s certainly a compelling one. The thing is, it’s quite long. And it reads long too. Sure, it’s meant to span an entire life, 6 plus decades, but it’s also very leisurely paced.
      Sharkey’s a likeable protagonist, the essential cliché of an aged wave rider, seasoned, waterbeaten old timer, a yarn spinner extraordinaire, who’s never read a book, but lived and traveled well and widely. Sharkey carries the book as easily as he does his surfboard, though his story doesn’t quite speed along the same way he does through the water.
     Theroux is a very good author and he’s had plenty of practice perfecting his craft, so his writing is smooth and easy, but it’s also indulgent and pays for it in dynamics.
      And Sharkey, for all his immediate likeability, may not be the most layered, original or sympathetic of characters when you analyze him critically.
      It’s a perfectly decent read and a very credible armchair surfing experience, but it isn’t an easily recommendable book and certainly won’t work for everyone. Thanks Netgalley.