In this fast, engaging tale Norman Ollestad tells about how he survived a mountaintop plane crash as an 11-year-old, a crash that killed the pilot, his father and his father’s girlfriend, and how his relationship with his father, and the skills he had learned under his tutelage, had prepared him for his near-death ordeal.
Ollestad tells of his upbringing, of his charismatic surfer/lawyer/coach father who drove him to peaks of physical performance he would never have reached un-pushed, and who brought him to joys he might never otherwise have enjoyed. He gives us a picture of growing up on the beach in Malibu, traveling in a very dangerous Mexico with his father, having to cope with the divorce of his parents and the conflict inherent in managing relationships with his parents’ new others’, and discovering newborn sexual feelings. And for good measure there is a sort-of car chase, gunshots, and ruminations on god.
Once I started reading this book, I hated to put it down. It is a fast read, a page-turner. I quite enjoyed it.