A review by emckeon1002
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan

4.0

I arrived at this book not because it won the Pulitzer, and was heaped with praise (though I remembered reading the praise), but because surfing plays such a large part in a few of the detective novels written by Don Winslow (a current obsession). Finnegan is, by every measure, a very fine writer. His work in the New Yorker has always been worthwhile reading. Practically the very same age as me, I marveled at the choices he has made in his life, which were very different than my own, and where the waves have carried him. With the flavor of a picaresque novel, we follow Finnegan from wave to wave, and through his life. While his descriptions of the sea, and waves are poetic and sensual, I found myself on youtube looking for videos of those waves he described (and by the end of the book, was a bit weary of the wave descriptors). A very good book, by a very good writer who, despite his doubts, has lived a thoroughly examined, thoroughly realized, life.