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In Search of Captain Zero: A Surfer's Road Trip Beyond the End of the Road | 
 enlarge | Author: Allan Weisbecker
Publisher: Tarcher
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy Used: $5.48
You Save: $9.47 (63%)
New (30) Used (28) from $5.48
Avg. Customer Rating:  64 reviews
Sales Rank: 64302
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6 x 0.9
ISBN: 1585421774
Dewey Decimal Number: 972.00090490922
EAN: 9781585421770
ASIN: 1585421774
Publication Date: September 16, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: wear to exterior from use, esp. along edges. book "leans" from use. but still clean and perfectly readable.
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
In 1966, Allan Weisbecker "made a Manhattan run from the landlocked suburbs" to take in a siren-song movie called The Endless Summer, a documentary that depicted the carefree life of two beach bums who roamed the world in quest of the perfect wave. Weisbecker was hooked, and he became a hardcore wave rider, a fixture on the Long Island surf scene. With a friend, Christopher, he also undertook illegal ways to finance his passion, transporting drugs from exotic countries, a business only briefly interrupted when Christopher went off to Vietnam. There he took fire and came home scarred; something in him changed, and one day he simply vanished. Weisbecker's book, a sort of gonzo detective story blended with travelogue and peppered with hang-10 jargon, does many things, all of them very well indeed. It offers up a vision of innocent times brought to ruin by war and drugs; it recounts his search for his lost friend, whose life had gone from bad to worse far away from home; and it affords a look inside the strange culture of surfing, whose masters "understood, in a visceral and soulful and inexpressible way, the machinations of the sea, and, by subtle inference, the universe at large." Full of regret and exhilaration, Weisbecker's memoir is a fine chronicle of a dream gone sour and a friendship redeemed. --Gregory McNamee
Product Description
In 1996, Allan Weisbecker sold his home and his possessions, loaded his dog and surfboards into his truck, and set off in search of his long-time surfing companion, Patrick, who had vanished into the depths of Central America. In this rollicking memoir of his quest from Mexico to Costa Rica to unravel the circumstances of Patrick's disappearance, Weisbecker intimately describes the people he befriended, the bandits he evaded, the waves he caught and lost en route to finding his friend.
In Search of Captain Zero is, according to Outside magazine, "A subtly affecting tale of friendship and duty. [It] deserves a spot on the microbus dashboard as a hell of a cautionary tale about finding paradise and smoking it away."
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| Customer Reviews: Read 59 more reviews...
 I don't even surf July 11, 2008
I picked up this book after having read the fictional "Cosmic Banditos". It's the mind-boggling road diary of Weisbecker's trip off the grid. He sells off his life, grabs his dog and surfboards, and heads out with no real direction other than 'south'. His funny, relaxed writing evokes a storytelling session around a campfire on the beach.
This is the kind of audacious drop-out from society that most of us will only dream about. After cringing at some of Weisbecker's more harrowing adventures, some of us will be glad we never took the leap. The story takes an uncomfortable turn when Captain zero is finally found, a turn which may cement your commitment to staying safely on the grid.
 Makes me dream about the beach life July 8, 2008
Anyone who is nostalgic about surfing, the beach, women, friends and the passage of time should read this book. It is hard to believe how well written it is. There are many interesting, sad and funny stories in the book. The scene about the large wave hitting their small beach house in Hawaii actually had me, dare I say, laughing out loud. I'm now reading the book a second time after a one year hiatus, and enjoying it just as much (a good activity until I can get back to the beach!).
A Head-On Collision Between Endless Summer And Electric Koolaid Acid Test June 16, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
There's nothing like a surfing trip to Costa Rica with flashbacks to drug dealing days to make for a great literary achievement.
The book may be $10.00, but the chapter on "The Boat" is priceless! I've bought at least 10 copies to give to my friends to read. It is a true classic.
How this book has gone this long without being made into a movie is incomprehensible.
Excellent thought provoking and fun read May 4, 2008
This book appealed on so many levels. Want a good surf adventure, you got it. Like a nice travelogue, it hits there too. Want an excellent character study, absolutely. If you want to shake your head while laughing out loud, you get that here also. It was a book that was fun and yet thought provoking, strongly recommended.
in search of captain zero March 29, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A very different kind of surfing story. For those that that are into surfing and travel it's pretty cool. It's a good adventure surfing story. I started reading it on an island in Panama durring a surf trip which gives me a different perspective. It definetly made me want to keep traveling/surfing. For the non surfing types, I have no idea how it would be recieved....
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