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Welcome to Paradise, Now Go to Hell: A True Story of Violence, Corruption, and the Soul of Surfing

by Chas Smith

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Surfing’s North Shore, beyond the postcard

$16.47 USD
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Paperback New English

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Awards & Recognition

  • Award recognition

    Finalist for the PEN Center USA Award for Nonfiction

    The book is identified as a finalist for the PEN Center USA Award for Nonfiction.

AlbakiReads Editorial

Surfing’s North Shore, beyond the postcard

Set during the winter surf season on Oahu’s North Shore, Chas Smith’s account examines the pressures surrounding the Triple Crown competition and the arrival of surfers from around the world. The coastline’s beauty sits alongside conflicts involving locals, visitors, the surf industry, and criminal elements. The book brings together surfing, crime, and adventure while tracing tensions around class, race, power, and money in a place reshaped by its seasonal influx. Smith’s perspective as a surfer and former war reporter informs this nonfiction portrait of a surf scene where competition and commerce meet local life.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in surfing and the culture around major competitions
  • Readers seeking nonfiction about crime and social tensions
  • Readers curious about Oahu’s North Shore during the winter surf season

Themes

Surf culture and competitionLocal and outsider tensionsClass, race, power, and moneyCrime and corruption

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

A finalist for the PEN Center USA Award for Nonfiction

Welcome to Paradise, Now Go to Hell, is surfer and former war reporter Chas Smith's wild and unflinching look at the high-stakes world of surfing on Oahu's North Shore--a riveting, often humorous, account of beauty, greed, danger, and crime.

For two months every winter, when Pacific storms make landfall, swarms of mainlanders, Brazilians, Australians, and Europeans flock to Oahu's paradisiacal North Shore in pursuit of some of the greatest waves on earth for surfing's Triple Crown competition. Chas Smith reveals how this influx transforms a sleepy, laid-back strip of coast into a lawless, violent, drug-addled, and adrenaline-soaked mecca.

Smith captures this exciting and dangerous place where locals, outsiders, the surf industry, and criminal elements clash in a fascinating look at class, race, power, money, and crime, set within one of the most beautiful places on earth. The result is a breathtaking blend of crime and adventure that captures the allure and wickedness of this idyllic golden world.

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