Surf Noir Gets Pynchon Treatment

Thomas Pynchon, the writer many consider to be the best still alive, has dropped in on Kem Nunn territory with his lastest work, Inherent Vice.

The story, set in LA, follows a stoned private investigator Larry “Doc” Sportello along the streets and beaches of Southern California during the dying days of the psychadelic 60s. Featuring the alleged kidnapping of a wealthy real estate developer, Inherent Vice, like Southern California itself often slides off into the surf:

For the last few weeks now, St. Flip of Lawndale, for whom Jesus Christ was not only personal savior but surfing consultant as well, who rode an old-school redwood plank running just under ten feet with an inlaid mother-of-pearl cross on top and two plastic skegs of a violent pink color on the bottom, had been hitching rides from a friend with a little fiberglass runabout far out into the Outside, to surf what he swore was the gnarliest break in the world, with waves bigger than Waimea, bigger than Maverick’s up the coast at Half Moon Bay or Todos Santos in Baja. Stewardii on transpacific flights making their final approaches to LAX reported seeing him below, surfing where no surf should’ve been, a figure in white baggy trunks, whiter than the prevailing light could really account for. . .

We’re only on page 99, but already know that Inherent Vice deserves space on the bookshelf of any surfer who reads, and vise versa.

[Link: Inherent Vice]