Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #147414 in Books
• Published on: 2005-12-29
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

From Amazon.com
If you aren't already familiar with Kem Nunn's 1984 novel Tapping the Source, or if the idea of a "classic surfing novel" makes you either chuckle or shudder, be prepared to realign your literary biases. This is not a story of gilded surfers and sun-bleached blonds, of insouciant days and moonlit nights on the beach; instead, Nunn has crafted a darkly pensive meditation on solitude and desire. Ike Tucker is the quintessential loner, trapped by both circumstance and inclination in a California desert town, abandoned first by his mother and then by his sister, Ellen, who fled, in turn, toward the promise of the coast. His awareness of his own alienation, rendered in prose that is always elegant and often poignant, is haunting:

As he listened the train sounds grew faint and disappeared and someone shut off the music so there was just the silence, that special kind of silence that comes to the desert, and he knew that if he waited there would come a time, stars fading, slim band of light creeping on the horizon, when the silence would grow until it was unbearable, until it was as if the land itself were about to break it, to give up some secret of its own.

The secret, though, comes not from the desert but from the sea. Propelled by a mysterious rumor of his sister's murder, Ike enters the surfing mecca of Huntington Beach, whose bright façade conceals shadowy violence and joyless violation. Wistfully intent on understanding the men who might have killed his sister, Ike abandons himself to the hypnotic allure of the ocean: "The tide was low and the waves turned crisp black faces toward the shore while trails of mist rose from their feathering lips in the golden sun." Nunn's language effortlessly reflects Ike's desires and fears; the novel spirals gracefully into the young man's eventual immersion in the surfing culture and riffs on the terrifying ease with which that immersion becomes overwhelming. Although a murder may lie at the heart of the narrative, the novel is far more an exploration of character than of suspect and motive--and that exploration is infinitely rewarding. --Kelly Flynn

About the Author

Customer Reviews

TRUE TO LIFE EPIC JOURNEY
If anyone could mimic the harsh realities of culture and the trends of an Orange County mainsteam Local obbsession. It would be induced into the pages of this book. Being a Huntington Native I feel the sence that Nunn had traveled or stayed many a days on the beaches, the neo-nazi cult fantasy is out but the exteam revalations portrayed into the surf scenes and subculture of "Main ST" where virtually nailed on the head, Now this rundown surf shack infested oil field is a blissfull robust rich culture pushed from "the norm" by its surf culture, yet overly conglomerated by "TACO BELL" "HILTON" tourism and consumerism. Life depicted in this story much portrays the life of a typical Highschool student at Huntington High. Well Written and there is hope in this book maybe for a movie?

Not what I had expected...great atmosphere - lousy ending
I should start off by saying that I hoped to find the ultimate Southern California modern noir book, and "Tapping the Source" didn't achieve that lofty peak. It is a very well plotted book however, brimming with a malevolent atmosphere that one can sense in the air down here, particularly in the "laid back" surfers and bleache blonde (...). There are some fabulous passages about the spiritual underpinnings of surfing and how it effects the various people in the book. Unfortunately, the "whodunnit" element of the story never really works too well, but then positively falls apart in the last fifty pages. Just too contrived for me, and not the right tone. But kind of creepy. Good read for sure. And let's face it, quite unique.

A Source of Good Entertainment
The growling Harley Davidsons and pier pounding surf make this a read easy to sink your teeth into. Intrigue is kept high with tweak after tweak of plot and scene. Kem Nunn brings to flesh characters that easily carry you away into a far out bad trip. At that age of young adulthood with so many confused love emotions, Ike (protagonist), shows us that relationships are about choices of commitment rather than blood.