Cloudbreak, California
Raised by hippie-like parents, Daniels essentially had to fend for himself. The stories he tells are family tales of separation, but also reconciliation. In his picaresque memoir, he describes visiting his father, who got caught selling drugs, in prison. He recounts his travels around the world, doing odd jobs in Central America, Mexico, and Europe, describing his adventures and the people he met along the way in places as varied as Guatemala City, San Salvador, Puerto Vallarta, Argentina, San Francisco, Atlanta, and, finally, Rock Island, Illinois. The writing is loose and fluid; it is a young man’s book. In fact, for most of the memoir Daniels is a man who has no strong motivation to grow up until a confrontation with a supervisor changes his way of thinking. After his father is paroled, Daniels discovers that they share a common interest in surfing. In this rambling tale of postponed adulthood, Daniels asks, and tries to answer, the question all of us have pondered at one point or another: What am I to do with my life? --June Sawyers