Click Here To Purchase All For A Few Perfect Waves 

Author:  David Rensin

ISBN-13: 978-0-06-077331-1  

The surfer’s dream of an Endless Summer spent chasing the next surf spot, avoiding winters and living on a shoestring is a stylized myth. At least, for most of us it is. For Miki Dora, or Da Cat, as most everyone in the surf world knew him, the Endless Summer was a reality. Which is interesting enough, but being that Miki’s personality defied labels and standards and laws and in some cases even borders, Da Cat’s life and lifestyle embodied all that we mere non-surfers lack: total personal freedom. And it is exactly this that makes Miki Dora’s life worth reading about.

Fittingly for a maverick character such as Da Cat, All for a Few Perfect Waves is not a traditional biography. Author David Rensin has instead written – one is tempted to even say compiled – a book full of interview responses culled from more than 170 of Miki Dora’s friends and acquaintances. Because he draws together such a diverse array of perspectives, Rensin is able to present the reader with a very complete characterization of Miki Dora in all his wily, arrogant, clever, beautiful, tarnished glory. Owing to all of these voices, Rensin is able to stitch together a narrative of Dora’s life and thus present the man not through the biographer’s eyes, but through the eyes of Dora’s contemporaries.  

But though one reads easily enough through Dora’s friends’ and acquaintances’ anecdotes and asides, it is easy to feel that Rensin has relied too much on these people’s writing, and has neglected the biographer’s basic task of cobbling together a cohesive story – in the biographer’s own voice – of the subject’s life in a manner that does the subject justice.

Take, for example, Section 5 of Chapter 9, which goes on for 5 pages: during those 5 pages, Rensin contributes just 7 paragraphs of original writing, while the other 11 are provided by Dora’s friends, each of whom have a different voice that the reader must adjust to. And by no means is this exceptional – this is a main feature of the book. Which, for the reviewer’s taste, presents the reader with just too many voices. Indeed, it’s very easy to lose track of who’s who: with over 170 contributors, All for a Few Perfect Waves contains approximately 50 more characters than Tolstoy’s War and Peace.  

For argument’s sake, however, let’s say that All for a Few Perfect Waves actually does do Dora’s legacy justice. It is, after all, approved by Dora’s father even though it is very much a warts-n-all bio. And perhaps the research that Rensin did is amazingly thorough and he has forged it together brilliantly. But still, it is kind of hard to get into this book – even for a surfing enthusiast such as the reviewer.

However, where the reviewer sees weakness, the reader may in fact see strength. Especially if the reader is a fan of Miki Dora, All for a Few Perfect Waves will be a welcome recollection of Da Cat’s exploits as told by 170 biographers.