This is an odyssey of two friends. Tom is a keen surfer who hasn't let his career interfere with his obsession; in fact by writing books in a surfing context he's managed to marry them to some extent. Dr Marc Rhys, once just as keen, has been sidetracked into academic success and delivering papers on baffling scientific matters at prestigious conferences. But they meet in 2006 with an aim: to travel America's east coast hoping for the perfect surfing waves created by a hurricane swell. It's the right season, with some potential hurricanes on the way, including a promising one called Dean; they can only hope it won't disappoint.

Hoping for a category 5 hurricane does of course raise some moral questions, and the dark side of their quest is not ignored. The description of their time in New Orleans is in fact one of the most gripping episodes, when they become aware of both the elemental power of wind and waves and the unquenchability of the human spirit. The observation is sharp and shrewd:

A couple of miles further over we crossed into those less affluent neighbourhoods, heading south towards St Bernard and the Lower Ninth Ward – the places that hadn't had the same opportunities for evacuation and recovery. Skeleton warehouses lined France Road, alongside ruined shopping malls. More rubble followed, which was once someone's home – a veranda in tatters. The residents had moved to a caravan with a lifebelt tied cautiously to the rear. […] some of the empty and abandoned properties had been spray-painted with macabre statements which nobody had yet bothered to erase, 'Has been searched' or 'Dead body inside'.

He's also more informative on the practical human results of Katrina than much reportage I have read; I didn't know, for instance, that when survivors were herded into the Superdome all drugs, including prescribed medication, were confiscated, so that, as his informant puts it, "schizophrenics and all sorts were running wild". The degree of paranoia still evident in those he meets, many of whom do seem sincerely to believe that the whole thing was orchestrated to kill off poor people, is both surprising and understandable, to him and us.

Dark side notwithstanding, the quest is about elemental joy, the sheer pleasure of moving with wind and waves, and here his writing is really effective. I don't surf; I can't even swim, and even so he manages to get across the exhilaration he feels. I think one reason he succeeds is that he doesn't stop to explain technical terms; if you know them, fine, if you don't, you can tag along breathlessly in his wake and pick it up as you go along. It worked for me, anyway:

Duck-diving, I peered down a breaking wave, through the pitching barrel. I felt the vortex and the pull of the lip wanting to drag me back, and then heard the noise, a moving, echoing torque. It was the most enthralling sound on earth, the acoustics of water.

When the writing is energised by the quest, it is really strong. I think it's true that in some of the very early chapters, before he gets to what really interests him, it is less so. Writing of waves, weather systems or friendship he is always sharp, but at odd moments early on, when something interests him less, the language and observation are more perfunctory, and you get dud phrases like "an oasis of unspoilt greenery". But this is rare, and gets rarer as the quest takes hold. The first few chapters are perfectly readable, but not unputdownable. Persevere and you'll soon find it does get an unbreakable hold on you, rather as the quest for Dean did on him.



Chasing Dean is here on amazon.uk.