Posted on: Saturday, September 8, 2001
Book Review
Story of a surfer in love strikes chords in Hawai'i
By Ann M. Sato
Special to The Advertiser
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"THE WATER'S END" by Christopher Hawkins, Trafford, paper, $17.95
Christopher Hawkins, an Austin, Texas, lawyer, businessman and writer, sounds wistful in a cover note on his book, "The Water's End," in which he says that he rarely has time anymore to surf or travel.
But as often happens with novelists, he lets his characters live his impractical dreams for him. This short, readable novel has no Hawai'i connection, but is peopled with characters whom residents of any Hawai'i north shore will recognize: adventurers, seekers, exiles who interact with the locals and sometimes even learn from them.
The protagonist in "End," Rob Miner, sets out after the death of his beloved grandmother to surf and travel for as long as his small inheritance will last, intending to chase waves in Mexico and points south.
Early on, however, fate intervenes in the form of a bus accident that introduces him to a pair of similarly minded young women. Unwilling to get involved in the labyrinthine police investigation that will inevitably follow the accident, the three sneak away, hitch a ride with an obliging farmer and are dropped off in paradise: Puerto Angel, a tiny village in Oaxaca, just steps away from white sand and a wicked break.
Here, in a cluster of open-air cottages presided over by the wise and strong-willed Helena, Rob makes friends with a boy orphaned by a revolution, surfs his first Pacific waves and falls in love with one of his traveling companions, Greta.
They drink Carta Blanca, eat mangoes and fresh tortillas and make love in the fragrant night, living on a few pesos a day. Greta learns to cook Mexican dishes under Helena's tutelage while Rob tests himself against awesome waves.
Everything seems perfect — "Oh, God, please, please," says Greta, "don't let this ever end."
Which is approximately when it does, of course. It turns out Greta is trying to escape a past from which she's unable to completely extricate herself. And soon Rob is as trapped as she is.
This book will appeal to surfers for the moments — few, but well painted — inside Rob's head as he works the waves. "The board streaked forward, racing for the whiteness, and Rob was only dimly aware of the roar chasing him like a freight train, dimly aware of his blurred line of sight through the fog, of the fact that he'd forgotten to breathe fifty feet ago. His only thought the precise line being drawn through the water by the rail of his board."
A well-made scene can lend the reader memories of experiences he or she has never had. Hawkins' crisp prose does so, allowing even those who've never heard it in real life to become familiar with the peculiar hiss and rattle of a board cutting through the water, sliding down the face of a wave. It will also appeal to anyone who has attempted a geographic solution to an internal problem or contemplated doing so. Greta carries with her an almost suicidal need to contact the family that was the cause of her decision to run in the first place. Rob has his own shadows. And Mexico provides the dark background to their stories.
Both learn that perfection is available to humans only in fleeting moments, over as soon as recognized. And they soon see that, once you allow yourself even to linger in the vicinity of the tree of knowledge, your exile from Eden is inevitable.
This book about endings and new beginnings closes as a sadder-but-wiser Rob gives himself up to yet another wave. Will he give himself all the way, allowing the water to end his life? Will he continue to search for meaning at the water's end — the beach, the waves? Will he travel on? Will he ever go home or, indeed, find any home more permanent than the face of a wave?
We do not know. And this is just right.
"The Water's End" will become available on Amazon.com in the near future but can be ordered now via the author's Web site, www.thewatersend.com
Hawkins: Texas lawyer writes book about expatriates.
