The Depth Test Deep Water

In: The Depth Test by Stu Nettle Wed 27th Jan '10

Tags: brendan mcaloon

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15th January 2010
Review by Stuart Nettle.

Memory works in curious ways...

The back cover of Deep Water, the latest book by Brendan McAloon, has a quote by the author about his childhood town. In it he describes a landscape '...of sheep and wheat and dirt.' I'm not sure why but reading this I immediately thought of the song Cattle and Cane by The Go Betweens with Grant McLennan singing about his childhood home, '...a house of tin and timber.'

Two Australian men of Irish descent musing on their childhood surrounds. And while both let their thoughts travel from humble beginnings to 'a bigger brighter world', there the similarities end. McLennan follows a melancholy line in his famous ditty while McAloon writes of his topics in a clear-sighted and eager manner.

Clear-sighted he may be, but McAloon - like a good Irish storyteller - allows his tales to wander to and fro. The narrative often veers away from the main trail while the author pulls a thread of his surfing life through the history of Surfing and the world at large.

And so, one moment you are reading about travels with Ted Grambeau through the Tuamotos and the next a philosophical explanation why human beings have an inherent need to wander, replete with quotes from Umberto Eco. McAloon connects idea and anecdote seamlessly.

Crafty storytelling aside, the style suits those with shorter attention spans. The writing moves quickly and the prose - much like the well-travelled author - is never pinned down in one place for long. From Warnambool to Tahiti, Ireland, Iceland and further still, McAloon writes with the eye of the curious traveller and the research ethos of the journalist.

Unlike many contemporary surfing books Deep Water does not rely upon the power of 'the photo'. There is the occasional image from the likes of Jon Frank and Ted Grambeau, but the success of Deep Water rests solely upon McAloon's capacity as a storyteller. And this - in the finest tradition, the Irish tradition - is what McAloon is.

Deep Water is published by Hip & Shoulder books.

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