Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life

Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life is a 2015 memoir by William Finnegan, a writer for The New Yorker and the author of several social journalism books such as A Complicated War: The Harrowing of Mozambique and Dateline Soweto: Travels with Black South African Reporters. In Barbarian Days, Finnegan reflects on his upbringing in California and Hawaii, as well as his coming of age in the late 1960s. He relays his experience of the surfing counterculture and reflects on his adventurous and nomadic youth, which laid the foundation for his life as a writer and avid amateur surfer. Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for best autobiography and was named the William Hill Sports Book of the Year.

This guide refers to the Kindle edition of the book.

Summary

In Chapter 1, the author explains that when he was 13, his father’s work in the film industry prompted the family to move from California to Hawaii. Initially, Finnegan was bewildered by the complex and diverse social scene in his new working-class neighborhood of Kaimuki and sought refuge from bullies by befriending a clique known as the “In Crowd.” Often feeling alienated from his family and desperate to escape babysitting duties, Finnegan spent as much time as he could surfing at the local beaches, where he befriended other surfers and developed his skills.