This is a marvellously wry and exhilarating coming-of-age memoir. It is the story of a precocious young boy who discovers a new world - and a new understanding of himself and his troubled family - when he becomes obsessed by surfing the gleaming waves of the Atlantic Ocean.
The past reveals itself when the author, a disenchanted, unemployed English professor, decides one day on a whim - partly playful, partly desperate - to sneak off from his temporary job in Manhattan and catch a wave off a dingy shoreline. How did he become this semi-depressed, chain-smoking, aimless man, when for a few shining years of his childhood he was invincible?
Thad Ziolkowski's language as he retrieves his boyhood is gorgeous. Poetic, poignant, and disarmingly funny, his depiction of the sea is particularly breathtaking. Indeed, the ocean - magical playmate and harsh teacher at once - emerges as a character of its own. 'On A Wave' is an exciting, glorious portrait of youth . . . and surfing.
