Welcome to Paradise, Now Go to Hell: A True Story of Violence, Corruption, and the Soul of Surfing Paperback – July 8, 2014

What is this book about? And who the hell is this Chas Smith with his very good haircut?First, we read about fear, or the attraction and the addiction to it. We start in chapter one being plunged right into Smith’s misadventures as a war correspondent. We start with Smith captured by Hezbollah where he regrets the very real possibility of dying with a bad haircut. Keep going, we land in Hawaii with not a bullet to his gorgeous hair, but being choked by huge arm around his neck. Fear again. But his hair looks better now. Style, and Fear.The book keeps us on the adventure, mostly on the North Shore of Oahu in Winter, in the heart of darkness in Paradise. It isn’t pretty at all. Exploitation of very young athletes, drugs, corporate sponsors creating stars out of pretty California boys. Violent thugs keeping track. Exploitation.We ride into to some Hawaiian history, the dark side. We continue through the conquering and the commercialization of Paradise, and peek through the curtain at the inside of surfing life. We watch, along with Chas Smith as he stands in just the right light, with just the right skinny jeans, the monster sea rolling over some of the greatest surfers as they compete in the Pipeline Masters. Surfing. Competition. Money. Celebrity.We get a description of the pathways of people who have success handed to them by talent or circumstance, and of those who must will themselves into success, have to pay some hefty dues, sit and wait. Get up, get bloodied. It’s not just about surfing. Truth.We move, as Smith says, incrementally, from termite-eaten shacks, to big corporate houses on the beach. It goes fast, and then like a surfer putting out a hand to slow himself into the right spot, Smith takes us back for a pause in the stream, before spitting us out. Breathless.Smith is ever there, looking for trouble. After looking at death so closely he seems intrigued. He is not suicidal, just casting his trickster writing upon us. Writing.He is wrapping his mind and ours all around these subjects, all the while charming and charmed. All the dandyish humor, self-referencing, and self-deprecating commentary serves as a hilarious chaser to all that darkness. It may seem absurd to worry about your hair while wondering if you are about to be beheaded, but then….Charm.It is a dangerous thing to write authentically about dangerous things. People rarely do it. Any comfortable place that one enjoys will no longer be comfortable after writing it down to these exposed and dirty places. As Smith tells us, “Surfing is a completely insular world, where virtually every interesting subject, like anything emotional, deep, true, funny, or feather ruffling, is forbidden to cover.” Truth again.I read Kerouac’s “On The Road” a long time ago. I don’t compare books here, only a feeling. I remember right where I was when I read the last page of that book. I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me, falling down the rabbit hole. Like how I feel now for only the second time in a long reading life. Breathless.

The subtitle of this book is 'A True Story...' and it likely is mostly true. I think the author took some liberties with time and events but likely not in a way to alter it much.Any surfer has more than a passing familiarity with the North shore even if he has never been there for it is surfing's most sacred ground. All who have surfed there, or attempted to, or who have kept up with the scene are also aware of its peculiar form of unofficially sanctioned frontier justice. Some would call it localism, but this is a far more highly evolved system of justice, retribution and surf socialism that has evolved around the world's most iconic waves in one of the world's most iconic tropical paradises, and Chas Smith has come to town to break it down for the lay reader....and does a really good job of it.After giving us a taste of who he is: Thrill seeker, Journalist, Crap stirrer, Dandy, Surfer, World Traveler, and so on,the author proposes to take us on a journey through the labyrinthine inner workings of North Shore's high stakes, big wave surf scene.The problem is one of a finite resource, the world's best waves; a discrete area, seven miles of prime surfing; a near-infinite source of filthy lucre, corporate purveyors of globally consumed surf-themed goods, a put-upon minority with huge muscles, steely nerves, amazing physical skill and few compunctions about resorting to violence; the self-proclaimed rulers of their beloved, besieged surfing kingdom.The solution is an unarmed mob, roughly organized into an elite cadre of enforcers meting out justice based upon a rough calculus that takes into account the respect one has earned on the North Shore, surf-cred, corporate sponsorship, indigineity, the ability to take it and dish it out, and social connections.Underlying this is a subculture of drugs and ripoffs of various kinds done by people often not directly involved in the surf scene but who are woven into the social culture through blood ties and affiliation.What Mr. Smith has done is to paint us this picture through observation and through the eyes of various larger than life characters who are the key players in the scene. Even though he makes it read like a story, this is almost an ethnography based upon the Hawaiian big wave scene circa 2009.The book is a really fast and easy read and it holds one's attention all the way through. This is because the author is an excellent raconteur. Technically, he's only mostly literate though, and I'm shocked that Harper Collins didn't give him a better editor. For, the book is littered with numerous errors obviously resulting from over-reliance upon a spell-check program, and the author's unfamiliarity with word usage in general sometimes trips him up, e.g. on page 208 he uses the words compliance and implicit when he means complicit, with this sort of thing occuring throughout the book. At first it is jarring and then irritating.Still, the author makes a valiant attempt at literary flight by directly refering to Joseph Conrad and Jacques Derrida, and my hat goes off to him for that.This is a book I really looked forward to receiving because I've been engaged in a lot of rather dry reading of late and wanted a change. This was just the tonic. I received it yesterday morning, began it yesterday afternoon and finished it yesterday night with the thought that it would've been a wonderful accompaniment to a transpacific flight, indeed.

This book is an easy and thrilling ride. I enjoyed every bit of it, aside from the somewhat confusing chapter names, it is rich in it's story of Hawaii and for anyone who has been to the North Shore does an incredible job of reminding you how hellish and beautiful it is all at the same time. I have been there many times and felt this was an accurate description and much more fun that the place itself. I love Chas Smith's funny fashion elements and his ability to be cocky and endearing at times. His flow has a distinct style and in a time where there is a lack of journalistic integrity I appreciate Smiths ability to recognize his own battle with dark influences of corporations and the empathy he provides for the Hawaiian's feeling fiercely protective of their land. He actually humanizes some of the darker forces that dominate "country" and gives you a true inside peak as to why things are they way they are and maybe that's just how it's supposed to be. This book is a great read for surfers but ESPECIALLY for non-surfers who want to know why this place and these people create a hellish paradise.