Review
WL Rating
Big wave surfing means big time personalities. Stealing the Wave is British author Andy Martin’s take on the ego-charged feud between two of big wave surfing’s largest personalities, Mark Foo and Ken Bradshaw. To his credit, Martin has picked two of the most colorful, bigger than life characters from the North Shore. Built more like a dancer than a big wave surfer, Foo was notoriously ambitious, self-promoting, and a wickedly clever attention grabber. Bradshaw, on the other hand, is a bear of a man with a short temper and a strong jaw outfitted with teeth that have bitten chunks out of other surfer’s boards. Martin knew both men well and uses the knowledge to create drama around the surfers‘ conflict. Is it enough for a whole book? Probably not when you consider the loosely connected but seemingly out of place filler sections in the book that touch on Eddie Aikau, Ace Cool and Ted Deerhurst. As awkward as those passages felt, my main issue with Stealing the Wave are Martin’s attempts to inject heavy doses of gravitas into the narrative. While no one doubts the epic nature of big wave surfing, Martin’s melodramatic and reaching attempts to create tension in the beginning of the book had this reader cringing with embarrassment. Fortunately, as the book pushes on, Martin seems to snap out of his grand voice, and begins to deliver a more measured story. And it is a good story. Unfortunately for all of us, however, it just wasn’t done justice. (February 2010)
Stealing the Wave - Andy Martin
