Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir of Survival
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- ISBN13: 9780061766787
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
A riveting and moving memoir, written in crisp Hemingwayesque prose and set amid the wild, natural surf culture of Malibu and Mexico in the late 1970s
From the age of three, Norman Ollestad was thrust into the world of surfing and competitive downhill skiing by the intense, charismatic father he both idolized and resented. Yet it was these exhilarating tests of skill that ultimately saved his life when the chartered Cessna carrying them to a ski championship ceremony crashed 8,000 feet up in the California mountains, leaving his father and the pilot dead. The devastated eleven-year-ancient Ollestad had to descend the treacherous, icy mountain alone.
Crazy for the Storm is a powerful and unforgettable right tale that illuminates the intricate bond between an extraordinary father and his extraordinary son.
Amazon.com Review
Amazon
Amazon Exclusive Essay: It Starts With a Excellent Tale by Norman Ollestad
It was time for my eight-year ancient son, Noah, to read before bed. “Eh,” he groaned. “Reading is so dull. It sucks.” He’d been reciting this same mantra for months. I was resting beside him in his bed and I saw his whole life crumble–a slew of poor report cards and father-son opinion, ending in long term unemployment. “What about Dr. Seuss?” I reasoned. He glared at me with his brown eyes. “It’s okay,” he mumbled. I opened the book he was reading for his class and handed it to him. He stared at it, mute. “Noah,” I said from my lowest register. He proceeded to read at a snail’s pace and I pointed out that it would take him twice as long as usual to get through the required five pages. So he ran the words together, not even stopping at periods. I grabbed the book and told him we’d be reading all weekend to make up for his lack of cooperation. For months I coerced him like that, urging him past his bone idle monotone, trying to get him to connect with the tale. It was a long few months.
When I was Noah’s age I also disliked reading. I just wanted to hear the tale lacking having to work for it. I had wished my dad could work the same kind of magic he did with surfing: he’d push me into the waves so that I could simply delight in the ride, eliminating the most arduous, frustrating part of surfing–paddling for the wave.
My father was permanently asking my mother, who was a grade-school teacher, why I wasn’t a better reader. She advocated patience, and encouraged me by tirelessly pointing out things in each tale that I might tell to. My father was killed when I was eleven, so he never got to witness my eventual like of reading.
In order to help Noah find that like, I searched for a seminal moment in my past that had transformed me. There was no single thing. But during my reminiscences I flashed on Dad reading aloud my grandparents’ monthly letters from Mexico. They had retired to Puerto Vallarta and their letters were filled with tales. Tales about an inland village where Grandpa went twice a week to buy ice for their fridge, to keep their food cold. Tales about helping a Mexican family tree after a hurricane hit Puerto Vallarta. Tales of secret waterfalls and secluded isthmuses that Grandpa and Grandma had learned around Vallarta. And that’s when it hit me–it was very simple: the essence of my like for reading really emanates from my like for tales.
“How about I tell you a tale tonight,” I thought with fantastic zeal to Noah. His eyes lit up and he smiled. “What kind of tale?”
“Any kind,” I said.
“A tale about a magic skateboard would be cool,” he suggested. As I spun the unplanned tale, he rolled onto his side and stared at me, really all ears. The following night I made a bargain with him: “First read five pages, then I’ll work up a tale about whatever you want.” Before I got myself nestled beside him, he was middle through the first page. Progressively, Noah’s topics became more elaborate, and soon he was giving me outlines for tales. Somewhere along the line his reading voice changed–he was gobbling up the sentences, his voice alive with inflection. He’d broken through. Noah was hooked on tales, like I got hooked on riding waves. Once he’d veteran the pleasure of going on that narrative ride, reading became second scenery, like paddling for a wave. It all starts with a excellent tale.
Photographs from Crazy For the Storm
(Click to Enlarge)
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| My first surfboard, Topanga Beach, 1968 | Mom, Dad, and Me, Topanga Beach, 1968 | Dad in St. Anton, Austria, Early 1970’s | St. Anton with Dad |
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| Me, Ski racing | Skiing with Dad | Puerto Vallarta, 1975 | Three generations of Normans, 1977 |
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This is one of the worst books I have ever read. Told as the recollection of an airplane crash thirty years earlier as veteran by the then eleven year ancient leader, this book fails as the tale about an airplane crash (not enough about the flying to appeal to a pilot), fails as the tale about the childhood of an adolescent (skateboarding, skiing, surfing … trite and dull) and fails as the tale about a dysfunctional married couple living in California in the 1970s (dull and repetitive). The tale switches back and into the world between the plane crash, the boy’s trip down a mountain to safety and various dull autobiographical sketches (e.g. sixth grade football, drunken fights between his father and mother, etc.) Not worth the paper it’s printed on. Buy something else!
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
This is one of the worst books I have ever read. Not really a tale about a plane crash, not really an autobiography, not really a tale about a dysfunctional family tree as told through the eyes of an eleven year ancient boy – Crazy for the Storm tries to be all three but isn’t a well told – or even credible. If you reflect you’re buying a tale about flying or airplane crashes, you’ll be disappointed. Avoid this book at all costs.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
This book is very excellent, but the language was very offensive to me. I did not give this book to anyone to read, but threw it away.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
Horrible. He spends more time on his life, then we get a page on the crash, back to 10 pages about surfing in Mexico, another page on the crash. Waste of time, reading this is like eating sawdust.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
Ok . . . I buy that this is factual from a high level, as in the events described happened. But, I just cannot buy the details. Honestly, this makes James Fey seem honest.
Simply place, the hang up is the age of 11 years ancient. The book is told from a very adult POV, but is told at the time he is 11. It just does not work.
I judge he was pushed very hard by his father who might have had some very questionable judgement (very questionable in the modern world, but that is neither here nor there). I know some kids can be very grown up in these situations and I know that my childhood is different than others . . . but this 11 year tale is full of very adult thoughts and perspective (seeing the larger picture), sex, adult language, etc. All this in addition to acting in a way that an 11 year ancient would not in a crisis. All this makes it so distracting.
This kid went through an incredible life leading up to and including the crash. I suspect that 20+ years later the leader has last the ability to remember any of it very clearly (which is just life). So he writes it as an adult with life experience but it is an 11 year ancient’s tale.
As far as embellishment, I just feel there is no way an 11 year ancient could have acted as he says in and after the crash, regardless of how well his upbringing would have prepared him.
It is still a powerful tale and in ways a fantastic tale. It is a tale of a child/human with issues and coming to grips with them. It is a tale of of how a person struggles to be different or the same as their parent. The last chapter is wonderful. I do not regret reading this book . . . but as I have made plenty clear in this review I was hung up believing this was the real tale of an 11 year ancient. As such it makes me marvel how much is just poetic license
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5