Review
WL Rating
Caught Inside is part biography, a smattering of travelogue and a lot of philosophical navel gazing on surfing. I picked up the book after reading a few of the top-most reviews on Amazon. In hindsight, I probably should have delved a bit deeper before buying the book. Written by Daniel Duane, Caught Inside describes Duane’s exploits after leaving an unfulfilling job in Berkeley for a surfing-focused life based in Santa Cruz—a storyline that many a surfer could probably get behind. Unfortunately, while Duane has a true gift for crafting elegant prose, the book lacks a strong central pulse to push the reader along. The result is a languid, introspective and slightly self-indulgent bit of philosophical rambling that failed to make this reader care. I suspect that I would have liked this book a lot more if I had been curled up in front of a fireplace inside of a storm-ravaged Sea Ranch cabin. Sadly I wasn’t, and so I didn’t. (September 2009)
Caught Inside - Daniel Duane
