Surf’s Down: Under the Wave at Waimea and Malibu Rising

 

UNDER THE WAVE AT WAIMEA (2021)

By Paul Theroux

Mariner Books, 416 pages.

 

MALIBU RISING (2021)

By Taylor Jenkins Reid

Ballantine, 371 pages

 

 

 In winter, Northern clime readers often seek novels that feature warm beaches. If they have hunky surfers, all the better. Oddly, two novels by major authors featuring surfer life came out in 2021. Now for the mixed message: They aren’t bad, but neither are they stellar.

 

 
 

Under the Wave at Waimea features Joe Sharkey who, as a young man, was Adonis on a board–perhaps the greatest on any ocean. Women fell at his feet and then into his bed. In Section I of Paul Theroux’s new novel, we meet Joe at 62 and in still another relationship, this time with Olive, a 38-year-old English emigree nurse. “Shark” remains well-enough known to get free drinks and other minor perks, but for the new wave-riding hotshots, he’s either ancient history or someone they’ve only heard of. Such is the fate of every star athlete, but Joe has never done anything but surf and there’s not much call for a guy who can’t ride the big waves anymore. What do you do when the sponsorships run their course? Shark has simple needs, but still…. He is depressed, drinks too much, a tragic car accident leaves him afraid of the water, and he might be suffering from dementia. 

 

Section II takes us back to Joe’s troubled childhood–how he got to Hawaii, his relationship with his father, family tragedy, being bullied, the challenges of being a haole among native Hawaiians, and smoking dope. Solace comes in the ocean and from his Yoda-like mentor Uncle Sunshine.

 

It’s back to the present in Section III in which Joe is metaphorically drowning and Olive is about ready to bail. The interjection of a new character, Max Mulgrave, alters a lot of lives. He’s a Vietnam vet and tech guru/mogul who came to Hawaii and altered his life completely. Some think he’s literally a saint. He and Joe will collide, but Joe has a lot of demons to exorcise before he can hope to collect his AWOL marbles. 

 

The most intriguing part of the novel only tangentially involves Shark. Theroux does a superb job casting light at the resentment indigenous Hawaiians hold toward non-natives, especially white ones. I could have done without Theroux’s shallow psychologizing, but he really falls off the wave with a trite and cliched climax. This is a readable novel, but a middling effort from a writer we know to be better.

★★★

 

 

 

Taylor Jenkins Reid has penned a better surf novel, but not by much. Theroux’s book suffers from a one-dimensional central character; Malibu Rising from too much going on. It’s about watery Malibu life, but it’s also a multigenerational family saga into which Reid plops references from her previous novel. Toss in loads of background characters, surf heroes, dropped names of celebrities, and alternating main characters, and it’s very easy for readers to lose focus.

 

Reid likes glamor with or without bling and there’s plenty of both in Malibu Rising. Some comes slathered in cheese and is named Mick Riva. Reid tells us that family stories “are myths we create about the people who came before us, in order to make sense of ourselves.” Such tales have creation myths and this one begins in 1956, when head-in-the-clouds Mick meets, impregnates, and weds down-to-earth June Costas whose family runs a rustic fry shop. Fried fish is not a good match for a guy who fancies himself the next Bobby Darin. Trouble starts when Mick actually is good enough to go pro. He’s also good at fathering children–but by different women.

 

In the end there are four in the immediate Riva circle, three of whom are essentially mothered by Nina, the eldest, when Mick dallies, and June dies. Nina drops out of school, runs the fry shop, and at 18, becomes legal guardian of her sibs and half-sibs. Forget road-warrior Mick, who marries five times! Jay and Hud(son) are surfers as was Nina, but she discovers she can make a lot more money modeling swimsuits. She will also lose her tennis pro husband, who deals with losing his # 1 ranking by going full-Mick on Nina. The youngest of the Riva line is Kit who, not surprisingly, grows up confused and petulant.

 

All of these crazy dynamics come to a head at one of the Riva clan’s legendary beach house parties. Everyone comes: celebrities, wannabes, surfers, exes, current dalliances, total jerks, and nobodies. Metaphorically speaking, the gathering is a mix of petrol and matches, conducive for new family secrets to leach out, hysterics, drinking, drugs, arrests, literal home-wrecking, and Nina’s discovery of the end of her tether.

 

Malibu Rising has a lot of characters, but the more problematic aspect is that many are so thoroughly phony and unlikable that it’s hard to imagine them as anything other than the architects of their own misery. At 371 pages, Malibu Rising isn’t a massive tome, but with all those characters and a span of a half century of time, it feels like a draft of an epic. Reid is always worth reading, but this one left me wondering if a modicum of common sense exists anywhere along the Ventura Highway.  ★★★ ½  

 

Rob Weir