Synopsis
Young Medina Mason turns to surfing to vent her anger as her parent's marriage disintegrates and struggles to help herself and her brother survive the forces pulling the family apart. A first novel. 50,000 first printing. Tour.
Reviews
YA?Medina Mason, Midwestern transplant to the surf and high-rolling economy of Southern California, narrates this first novel by a promising young author. The teen struggles with her former fashion-model mother who despises Medina's slenderness while eating herself into oblivion; a twin brother who sinks lower and lower into his attachment to grass and pills because of his mother's neurotic attachment to him; an absent father who doesn't hear his daughter's pleas for help; and her own maturing relationships with guys. The harsh and superficial exchanges among individuals ring true: Medina inhabits a world where surf is the only reliable power, a power that can be understood at least as well as the adults in her life. She divides her peers into "tribes"?e.g., the towel girls (perfectly formed young women who never leave their beach towels), the "bottomfeeders" (lowlife guys who sell drugs on the beach and use strong-arm tactics to extract payment)?but the microcosm of her own family occupies most of her emotional energy and readers' attention. Teens living east of California will not find Medina's world attractive and may wonder if that's all there is to the fabled land of surf. Her family, however, could live?and attempt to destroy one another?anywhere.?Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
First-novelist Nicholson, a native Californian, describes in scathing detail the treacheries behind the facade of upper-class Palos Verdes. Medina and Jim, 14-year-old twins, move to the beach town from Michigan so that their cardiologist father can improve his career, eventually becoming the surgeon to the stars. Handsome, laid-back Jim adapts to the new environment, but independent Medina is less happy, finding solace only in the water. Alone in the surf, she can escape the pressures of beach-girl beauty, the superficiality of country club life, and the constant roar of her parents' fighting. Her father is caring and supportive, but rarely present, and her mother seems on the brink of a nervous breakdown--or worse. An ex- model, now a compulsive overeater, she changes out of her yellow bathrobe and leaves the house only to buy food. The greasy smell of her constant cooking permeates the place, while she, usually entombed in her bedroom, emotionally manipulates Jim, pitting him against Medina and her husband. Jim becomes his mother's ``protector'' and spends long days playing card games with her and watching TV. Nicholson depicts the subtle annihilation of his personality as he gradually becomes a conniver with his mother. When father moves out, life gets worse. Medina sleeps with an old druggie beach bum, Jim stumbles through each day increasingly stoned, and their mother gets even more desperate in her attempts to destroy her husband. Meanwhile, the author eerily catches the cloistered life of Palos Verdes--the adults pursuing high-powered careers and well-maintained lawns, the kids staying drunk or stoned. Medina begins innocently, connected to Jim with an unconquerable love, and she ends up alone and damaged (though a survivor). A compelling, realistic view of the underbelly of affluent California life. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
When the situation at her idyllic Palos Verdes home turns volatile, young Medina attempts to surf her way to happiness. This first novel's initial printing is set at 50,000 copies.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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