![]() ![]() ![]() But the full extent of Finnegan’s surf obsession has remained publicly untold. When literary non-surfers declared it the best piece of writing ever done about surfing, many surfers agreed. When “Playing Doc’s Games” was finally published in 1992, it sprawled far beyond its protagonist, chronicling the magnetic pull of our sport and the author’s own ambivalence about a life dedicated primarily to waves. Mark Renneker, a physician and big-wave surfer in San Francisco. Sure, his editor at The New Yorker knew that Finnegan was a surfer in fact, he was waiting for a draft of the piece Finnegan had pitched about Dr. ![]() WIN: An all-expense paid dream trip for two to Tavarua So Finnegan didn’t mention surfing, or the hardships he’d endured in the name of waves: schoolyard scraps on Oahu, acid trips and backseat camping near Honolua Bay, proletarian worship at Kirra, malarial sweats brought on by a pilgrimage to Nias and feral Polynesian meandering eventually leading to the grail-like discovery of pre-resort Tavarua. The young writer wanted to be taken seriously while discussing armed rebellions in Central America or apartheid in South Africa. When William Finnegan moved to New York in 1986 to earnestly pursue a career in journalism, he kept his past secret from the men in dark suits he interviewed - politicians, lobbyists, professors. ![]()
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