Zero Break | Books | Matt Warshaw

Zero Break: An Illustrated Collection of Surf Writing, 1777-2004

Description

An anthology of the finest surf writing ever produced. Authors include Herman Melville, Jack London, Dan Duane, Susan Orlean, William Finnegan, Tom Wolfe, Mark Twain, Dave Parmenter, Phil Edwards, Cintra Wilson and Kem Nunn. Art and illustrations by R. Crumb, Sandow Birk, Rick Griffin, Kevin Ancell, Peter Spacek and Wolfgang Bloch. Cartoons by Charles Schultz and Gary Trudeau. Photography by Jeff Divine, Tom Servais, Art Brewer, Patrick Trefz and others.

Reviews

“A first-rate anthology…brilliantly captures the essence of a subculture.”
—Terry Rodgers, San Diego Union-Tribune

“More than anything, the book is simply a joy to read.”
—Brad Melekian, Surfer

“Surf literature traces a surprisingly broad arc – from Captain Cook to Mark Twain to Tom Wolfe to Kem Nunn – and Matt Warshaw puts it all into historical and cultural context in his must-read intro to Zero Break.”
—CaliforniaAuthors.com

Author’s Note

I did an article for The Surfer's Journal in 1997 titled "Paperweight," about how mainstream authors have written about surfing over the decades. A lot of the work was better than I thought it would be. Plenty of trash, sure, but some of the things I assumed were trash—Frederick Kohner's Gidget, for starters—were in fact really good. I started to outline a book-size collection of surf writing, by surfers and non-surfers, but another project turned up, then another, and all of a sudden five years had gone by. About halfway through the Encyclopedia of Surfing I began thinking again about the anthology, and this time the idea was too good to put down. Partly because the Encyclopedia was rolling toward the 600,000-word mark, nearly all of which, in reference-book style, were assembled in tight, compressed, factual, neutral-voiced paragraphs. Terse. Very terse. And just a lot of words. Piecing together an anthology, I reasoned, would not only result in a worthy and long-overdue addition to the surf-lit cannon, but also reintroduce me to the land of rich, stylish, emotional writing. I got to spend the next few months in the company of Twain, Melville, Wolfe, Susan Orlean, William Finnegan and two dozen other first-rate authors, and it was a joy. Humor! Characters! Opinions and analysis and wordcraft of the highest order! God, Zero Break was a bitchin project.

The original idea was to do a prose-only book, similar to The Best American Sports Writing of the Century. But I’ve always loved Gary Trudeau’s “Doonesbury” surfing cartoons, and then why not throw in the “Peanuts” strips where Snoopy hits the beach in his matching jams and board, and from there it was an easy jump to bringing in verse, a screenplay, some artwork, and a few other accent pieces. Zero Break came out more than a 100 pages longer than I contracted for, but Harcourt didn’t bat an eye - and didn’t raise the cover price - so the thing is big as well as solid.

Book Excerpt

Excerpt from the Introduction.

Captain James Cook, celebrated master and commander of the Resolution, in the service of God, King, and the British Navy, dropped anchor at Tahiti’s Matavai Bay in late 1777 and rowed ashore for a quick surf check. A single canoe-paddling native was riding the small waves along the northern point. Cook was impressed—not just by the strange new “amusement” itself, but in the near-rapturous state it seemed to produce, to the point that the surfer showed no interest in the sunburned visitors, or their impossible three-masted vessels floating in the waters nearby. Read more »

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Published