From Publishers Weekly
Generally speaking, surfers don't write. They spend their formative years riding waves, smoking joints and chasing girls. Ziolkowski did all that, but somehow managed to avoid the Jeff Spicoli syndrome, becoming instead a poet (and director of Pratt Institute's writing program) whose talent and mastery of the language have allowed him to write this enjoyable memoir, equal parts surfer tale and bildungsroman. After his parents' divorce, Ziolkowski recalls, he moved with his mother and stepfather to Florida's Atlantic coast. He discovered the joys of surfing: the clothes, the camaraderie, the drugs (he first smoked pot at age 10 and was already "over" it by 15). Ziolkowski surfed almost daily, before school, after school and at night. Once he surfed so much that the glare from the water caused him to go temporarily blind; another time he hit the beach in the middle of a hurricane all in pursuit of the perfect wave. Although there's a lot of surf talk here, it's really a book about family: the wicked stepfather, the feral brother, the compassionate mother and the tragedies that ultimately tear them apart. Underneath the surfer veneer is a story about the disintegration of the author's family and growing up in a time (the mid '70s) when all the old rules no longer seemed to apply. Ziolkowski writes that he aspired to go pro but never quite made it a few trophies for local competitions was the closest he got, and a move to Kansas during high school prompted him to give up his quest for good. Better for readers that he did, for now they have this touching, poetic book. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
This engaging memoir of Ziolkowski's coming of age under the sun and in the sea ultimately defines a surfer's childhood struggle between the harsh reality of land and the idyllic serenity of the water. Eventually, the two combined to thrust Ziolkowski, at age eight, to the shoreline of Florida, where he became a surfer in the 1960s. The author's prose reflects the relaxed, bohemian way of life, perfectly capturing the surfer culture of the era. Ziolkowski's own life mirrors a storm swell: his parents' divorce, his move from home, his stepfather's uneven hand, and the ultimate understanding of an underlying sadness that surrounded his childhood make for a perfect ride on a rough wave. The sea becomes a particular sort of aquatic nirvana for Ziolkowski, who finds that surfing not only holds athletic and sexual appeal in the culture but emotional cleansing properties for him as well. This memoir makes one ache for the sea's ebb and flow, while his stirring account of an unconventional, oceanborne life reconfirms, for those who are landlocked, fantasies about the power and beauty of open water. This belongs with other true accounts of surfing life and culture, such as Daniel Duane's Caught Inside and Matt Warshaw's Maverick's. For all large sports collections. Rachel Collins, "Library Journal"Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Ziolkowski's memoir begins with him as a journalist, jaded in his office job and pondering the temptation to find a surfboard and jump into the waves once again. His excursion to the beach is colored with the feeling of a step taken toward a forbidden pleasure and a release from adulthood. Recounting the long process of learning how to surf and developing his skills, the author treats his subject with a zeal befitting a preacher. The narrative ends without explaining how the young surfer of wide-open beaches became a sun-starved office dweller, yet this missing link highlights the contrast and emphasizes that which he wanted to memorialize. Vivid imagery and emotionally charged recollections bring the experiences to life even for landlubbers and make Ziolkowski's religious fervor for surfing contagious. The occasional bit of jargon may seem prohibitive to the uninitiated; nevertheless, this surfing memoir will find a receptive and empathic audience in anyone who has ever felt the desire to escape the doldrums of adult life and relive the glory days and freedom of youth. Gavin Quinn
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


The San Diego Union-Tribune
"This book is a well-written and insightful journey into the emotional maelstrom known as adolescence."


Wayne Koestenbaum
"[On a Wave is] beautifully written, each sentence a poetic marvel....An accessible, graceful, hypnotic narrative."


Terry Tomalin, St. Petersburg Times
"On a Wave will surely join the likes of Daniel Duane’s Caught Inside and become a classic of surf literature."


Pat MacEnulty, The Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
"This funny and poignant story opens the heart...and reminds us of the pain and delight of youthful passion."


Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A wistful, elegiac remembrance of a surfing adolescence....[Told] in short, unhurried sentences that bite."


Book Description
Evocative and quietly mesmerizing, Thad Ziolkowski’s On a Wave is a poignant look back at adolescence, a memoir of his surfing years that Time magazine called "a sun-bleached 1960s period piece—a wistful, white-collar daydream." 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.


About the Author
Thad Ziolkowski has a Ph.D. in English literature from Yale University. He is a widely published poet, and his articles and essays have appeared in The Village Voice, Artforum, Index, and Travel & Leisure. He directs the writing program at Pratt Institute and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

FROM THE PUBLISHER