That Golden Shore (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780578754390)

What happened to the California Dream? Was it consumed by fire? Swept away in a mudslide? Or was it just lost in soul-crushing traffic?

That Golden Shore is a bittersweet love letter to the Golden State in slow-motion apocalypse, a tragi-comic caravan of aging rock stars and yoga gurus, surf punks and besieged immigrants, washouts from Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and the professional surf tour. It charts the odd collisions of history, culture, and spirituality that have seduced people to California for centuries: its lore and landscapes; its fragile, vanishing, impossible beauty; the resilience of its original peoples as they restore their homeland; and the mad frustrations of trying to live in a place collapsing under the weight of its own mythology.

In That Golden Shore, a working musician takes us on a road trip up and down his beloved, beleaguered coast, giving us a stage-eye view of the tribal power of music, the healing power of surfing, and life in an off-the-grid beach town crumbling into the ocean.

But That Golden Shore is also a story of renewal, about one uniquely American seeker's mid-life accounting of unspeakable losses on his journey west, the redemptive power of love, and the enduring power of landscape.