The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas
Let’s Go For A Ride!
Davy explains:
I’ve always drifted around the country a lot, and perhaps what I love most about this kind of travel are the brief, fleeting moments of crossing paths with strangers—a truck-stop waitress, kids at a basketball court, a guy who’s broken down on the side of the road and needs a jump. These little exchanges, I think of them as found moments; just like the notes from FOUND Magazine, you get a little glimpse into someone else’s life, enough to make you wonder about the rest of their story. I’m real big into writing stories, and a lot of the time it’s a found note or one of these tiny moments—a stranger I’ve blundered across for an instant—that sparks an idea for what I want to write about.
A few years ago, I was driving on a small two-lane highway through rural Kansas when I saw a bizarre and riveting sight—a teenage kid had slung a surfboard between two dead tractors in the middle of a cornfield and was balanced on top, like he was practicing how to surf. Here he was, thousands of miles from either coast, the sun setting in glorious colors behind him—I was mesmerized and sat there watching for ten minutes or so, and then I drove away; I don’t think he even saw me. But that image of him surfing in the cornfields stuck with me, and my curiosity about him kept growing more intense, so finally I decided to write a story about him, imagining what his life was like and what might have happened had our paths intersected. I called the story The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas (Montana is the name of a tiny town in Kansas) and it’s the title story of my new book. I hope you’ll check it out.
–Davy
Buy a copy here for a couple of bucks from Amazon.
Buy a copy here for 12 bucks from 21 Balloons and Davy will personally inscribe it to you.
Read Alex Kotlowitz’s glowing review in The Chicago Tribune.
On Davy’s book tour, he returned to the tiny town of Montana, Kansas for a reading. See pictures here.
Praise for The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas by Davy Rothbart
“Davy writes with his whole heart. These stories are crushing.”
—Arthur Miller
“It’s always exciting to discover a talented new writer. Davy
writes with such energy, wit, and heart.”
—Judy Blume
“Like Kerouac’s best novels, these stories are breezy and
energetic dispatches from obscure corners of the country…
Rothbart mines his material to heartbreaking effect.”
—The Washington Post
“It is storytelling at its simplest and finest…a blend of
melancholy and bravado. It’s the pleasure of Rothbart’s
writing that each yarn begins with a moment that feels so real and
yet so out of the ordinary that you’re hooked from the opening
scene.”
—The Chicago Tribune (click here to read Alex Kotlowitz’s full review)
“Funny, flashy… a great whirlwind.”
—The Los Angeles Times
“Provocative, original, and potent—at one moment hilarious, at
the next heartbreaking… robust with flavor… we’re left yearning
for more.”
—Elle
“Beautiful… Rothbart finds poetry, dignity and oddity in the
mundane and fleeting moments of everyday life.”
—Philadelphia City-Paper
“Witty and heartfelt as well as salty and somber, it’s a 162-page
romp—eight pieces of short fiction featuring folks who don’t
always make the best decisions, but somehow, as Bruce Springsteen
once put it, come to the end of every hard-earned day with a reason
to believe.”
—The Kansas City Star
“Stunning and intimate… Rothbart shines a light on America’s
underbelly.”
—The Boston Phoenix
“Recalls Fitzgerald and Kerouac… Rothbart’s characters dare to
seek adventure.”
—L.A. Weekly
“A truly wonderful and daring first collection.”
—The Grand Rapids (Mich.) Press
“I believe in Davy. He’s a force to be reckoned with.”
—Ira Glass
