Bill Gifford
…breathtaking…A portrait of a father's consuming love for his son, Crazy for the Storm will keep you up late into the night.
—The Washington Post
Publishers Weekly
Ollestad's memoir intersperses his harrowing childhood trauma as the sole survivor of a plane crash that killed his father with his coming of age in the '70s West Coast culture of surfing, skiing and skateboarding. A competent and engaging narrator, Ollestad evokes emotional intensity without descending into sentimentality and creates memorable portraits of his heroic father and his mother's abusive boyfriend. Granted, Ollestad presents his 11-year-old self as a tad more introspective and worldly wise than one might expect, but as the adult Ollestad reflects on how he was shaped by the hard-living, extreme sports culture of his family and community, the essence of a young man forced to grow up too quickly rings true. An Ecco hardcover (Reviews, Mar. 23). (June)
Los Angeles Magazine
A page-turning adventure tale . . . and a meditation on manhood.
Kirkus Reviews
An engrossing story of adventure, survival and psychological exploration. Ollestad hits several notes that should make his memoir irresistible to those looking for page-turning but thought-provoking summer reading along the lines of Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air (1997). In the winter of 1979, the 11-year-old Ollestad survived a plane crash in which his father and his father's girlfriend were killed. Alternating with young Norman's nine-hour trek to safety are scenes from the year preceding the crash, when the boy took a surfing trip with his father through the jungle along Mexico's Pacific coast. The flashbacks sections are the most fascinating parts of the book, and Ollestad ably captures the contrast between his charismatically cool father, Norman Sr., and his bullying stepfather-to-be, Nick. A photo of the elder Ollestad surfing with his one-year-old son strapped to his back captures the essence of the author's relationship with Norman Sr. He is convinced that his father's gentle but unyielding insistence that young Norman develop a sense of mastery over physical, emotional and mental challenges helped him survive the crash. The chapters that follow also suggest that his subtler ordeals with Nick were similarly important in the building of his character. Though some of the minutely detailed descriptions of his journey down the mountain read like creative-writing assignments gone awry, Ollestad presents a captivating account of high-altitude disaster that nicely dovetails with his coming-of-age story in '70s California. Deep and resonant. Author tour to Denver, Los Angeles, New York, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and by request
Like many other sons of demanding fathers, young Norman Ollestad, Jr. idolized, feared, and resented the man who drove him towards excellence. Prodded along by the dad who called him "The Boy Wonder," Norm Jr. became a champion surfer and downhill skier. That partnership took a fatal turn in February 1979, when a Cessna carrying father and son crashed, killing the father and temporarily marooning the 11-year-old boy in a relentless blizzard. In Crazy for the Storm, Ollestad pays tribute to the man who taught him the gift of survival. Now in paperback.
