On a Wave

by Thad Ziolkowski

In this prizewinning poet's wry and exhilarating coming-of-age story, Thad Ziolkowski's On a Wave poignantly looks back at adolescence in a memoir of his surfing years. As a disenchanted, unemployed English professor, Thad decides one day to sneak away from his temp job in Manhattan and catch a wave off a dingy Queens shoreline. In the meager cold waves, he contemplates how he could have possibly become a semidepressed, chain-smoking, aimless man when for a few shining years of his boyhood, he was invincible. His lapsed love affair with the ocean begins amid the late-sixties counterculture in coastal Florida. After his parents' divorce, nine-year-old Thad escapes from his difficult family -- notably a new brooding and explosive stepfather -- by heading for the thrilling, uncharted waters of the local beach. In the embrace of the surf, he is able to stay offshore for years, until his life is upended once again, this time by a double tragedy that deposits him at a crossroads between a life in the waves and a life on land. Lyrical and disarmingly funny, On a Wave is a glorious portrait of youth that reminds readers of Tobias Wolff's This Boy's Life and Frank Conroy's Stop-Time.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Sports

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Thad Ziolkowski is the author of Our Son the Arson, a collection of poems, and a memoir, On a Wave, which was a finalist for the PEN/Martha Albrand Award in 2003. In 2008, he was awarded a fellowship from the John S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. His essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, Slate, Bookforum, Artforum, Travel & Leisure and Index. He directs the Writing Program at Pratt Institute. Wichita is his first novel.

Reviews

[Taylor Atkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

So cool! All about coming to age/surfing where we live in Florida

[Jenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

For some reason I thought this was going to be a young adult novel, but it turns out to be a memoir. Ziolkowski is a poet, director of the Pratt Institute's writing program, and his prose is clear and simple. Not simple as in naive or inelegant, but unadorned, quiet...simple. There's that great poem, "Soonest Mended," by John Ashberry where he writes: "This was our ambition: to be small and clear and free." On a Wave is a little like that.

Set during Ziolkowski's childhood in Florida, it has that hazy, sad feel that a lot of things from the 1970s seem to have. Maybe because most people writing about the '70s are in their thirties and forties now? Anyway, Ziolkowski and his free-spirited brother Adam move with their mother to Florida after their parents' divorce, with their beloved, if absent, father almost immediately replaced by Pat, a huge, imposing, and volatile man who is the physical and temperamental opposite of their father. Adam revolts, Thad turns inward. Both eventually turn to the sea, becoming surfers.

The book begins with Ziolkowski at 30-something, temping as a copyeditor in Manhattan, sallow, heavy-set. He finds out that it's possible to surf in New York, so he takes off after work to hit the red line for Far Rockaway and gets on a board for the first time in almost a decade. This is a triumphant moment, even without understanding the depth of his surf-obsessed childhood, but it also sets the tone for the rest of the memoir. There's sadness (compounded by the knowledge that Ziolkowski abandons surfing for most of his early adult life), but also reverence and hope. It's not a happy story, but it's beautifully told.

[Darrell Reimer · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's my first day at Apollo Elementary, named in honor not of the god but, like so much else in (Florida), the space program. Seen from a surfboard a few years later, the match-like flame of a rocket pulsing upward into the sky from Cape Canaveral will be as banal as a rainbow, remarkable at best for how unremarkable it has become.

How's that for surfer perspective? He's sitting on a board in the ocean, thinking the guy being shot into orbit is banal! Yes, Thad Ziolkowski's coming-of-age-on-a-surfboard memoir, On A Wave , is the real deal. He successfully evokes an adolescence which is endured, possibly even salvaged, by surfing. He comes of age in all the expected ways, and his final farewell to surfing is heart-rending and realistic: surfing has served its purpose, but can take him no further into maturity. By book's end, he intimates with a gentle gravitas just how painful his adulthood becomes — a stunning evolutionary leap in surfer prose.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wistful and evocative ... Ziolkowski's portrait of youth and passion engulfs and resonates with luminous poignance and poetry. We are indeed on his wave.

[Kylie Carmichael · Rating 3 out of 5]

it was okay. i had to read it as an independent reading book for school so my teacher assigned it to me. im not into surfing which is probably the reason why i didn’t enjoy it. however, i thought the writing was nice and the story had a pattern so it was never boring. would not have been something i chose for myself, but overall i enjoyed it.

[Kayyler · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book did an incredible job of letting us live
Thad's childhood in his shoes. There's so much
more than surfing, whether its life lessons,
adventures, or learning how to be more mature
this book has it all. I believe that all ages can
relate to this book, teens who are currently
growing up can relate to some of Thad's dilemmas and adults can relate to life back when Thad was a kid

[Arlene Maltman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Through a surfer’s eyes this book was divine, a liquid refreshment for the senses, a dip in the ocean. Beautifully captures the additive nature of surfing and what we feel when the drug is taken away.

[Lynne Scholfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read. I love memoirs. They are good and fun to read

The main characters were fun to follow and although I knew nothing about surfing I enjoyed it. Think about reading this!

[Joni Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was nice reading about surfing on the left coast! As a pacific coast surfer, it was nice to see the surfing tribe is the same on both coasts, even if the waves are not.

[Hayden · Rating 3 out of 5]

A meditation on a surfing life interrupted. Not the best memoir on surfing I've read, but good enough. It hits all the right spots surfing-wise: the nightmares and angst of not having surfed for days or years, of having been separated from the ocean; the beauty of feathering waves and the stoic act of paddling out; the monastic devotion of watching the ocean's surface, looking, searching for promise.

The ending is the most beautiful part of the book, which feels particularly satisfying, just like catching your last wave in and riding it onto the sand. I groused a bit about some of the exposition at the beginning and middle--I just wanted more surfing. But, by the end, it is all worth it and you care about this boy, about his siblings and his somewhat uninspired family life. Give it a read and renew your appreciation for the incredible luck we have to be able to paddle out, to have the ocean there, waves or not. As always, it feels good to read about other's passion for waveriding. It is reaffirming to read that Ziolkowski--and the countless other surf-obsessed that appear in this book--have the same feelings about it as you do.

[Lara · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of a man who was a boy addicted to surfing. It's poignant and really beautiful at times, and kind of a coming of age story about finding (and losing) something you're passionate about, and about family and friendship and being a kid unable to entirely control your own path.

I have never surfed in my life, and I'm probably too terrified of the ocean to ever really learn, but I love the idea of it and I love reading about it and the people who are consumed by it. In this book I was really struck by the conversation Thad has with a couple of older guys upon finding out that his family is moving away from Florida, and they basically kind of tell him, "this is a good thing. You can't see it now, but go to college and learn something and don't end up like us." And he doesn't. But I think about his younger brother Adam, and if things would have turned out any different for him if they had stayed.

Anyway, I really enjoyed it, and it's made me think a lot more than I thought it would--it's definitely a memoir with a lot more depth than I would have expected.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was interested in this novel because Thad taught me in my freshman year at Pratt Institute. I had and still have very little interest in surfing, and while it encompasses much of the book, it's not the physical act of surfing that makes the story, but the gradual building of love for the sport and then the emptiness that takes its place afterwards. There's something about Thad's writing that so clearly gets across every feeling he has: I found myself carrying a disdain for Pat when there was no truly terrible thing that he did. Then I found myself growing to be quite fond of him, while the writing itself didn't put it into blunt words. Then, when it did, I realized the writing was perfectly invoking in me the correct emotions at every moment. The book turned truly beautiful at the end. There's a lightness to the writing; no one thing is overdramatized, instead it's all quietly lovely.

[Garen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book. A classic bildungsroman the protagonist of which is a young boy in Florida who grows up surfing. The language is soft and lyrical. The novel tends to dwell upon the spiritual aspect of surfing at times, but I think there is definitely enough novel here, and it is so well written, that I think even non-surfing folk will find plenty here to hold their interest. The author has a curiously abstract style of description and his metaphors are often startlingly original and insightful. While it is a story about surfing it is also much more and, like any story of this genre, it reaches out to encompass the big questions. Well worth reading.

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Favorite lines from the whole book - And as some one who surfs, nothing could be more true...

"I turn seaward to look for a wave. The last is often elusive; it's as if, like a lonely child, one too proud to say simply, "Don't go! I don't want you to go!," the ocean contrives indirect ways to prevent your leaving: lulls set in, or only below-average waves appear, and no one wants the last to be anything less than good."

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a simple and beautiful book. Ziolkowski remembers well what it's like to be a teenage boy with his head in the waves. My head was in skateboarding. Others are into biking or skiing; it doesn't really matter. It's all about the sport, the culture, the cool guys, where you fit in, and the magazine pictures of the ultimate wave, skate ramp, mountain. School, girls, parents, all that is secondary. The end of Thad's days as a boy surfer broke my heart.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a mildly entertaining book about a young boy and his love for surfing.

[Tatiana · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a sport i have no desire to try or follow, this book was nicely compelling. as that sort of sport-memoir book should be. mostly because the family dynamic was so closely tied to the surfing.

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Made me fall in love with surfing all over again. On a Wave is perfect for the beach!!

[Steph · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my absolute favorite books of all time.