April 15, 2019
Dungo’s elegiac debut memoir recalls growing up, falling in love, and facing profound loss at a young age. Set in Southern California, the artist, as a teenager, gets into skateboarding and falls for surfer schoolmate Kristen. Their romance is interrupted when Kristen is diagnosed with bone cancer; even after losing a leg, she continues to surf. When she’s too weak to get out on the water herself, she accompanies Dungo and her brother to the beach and watches from the shore. Dungo intersperses memories of Kristen with a history of surfing, from its Hawaiian origins to the ascendancy of Olympic champion Duke Kahanamoku, to the innovations of surfboard designer Tom Blake. The muted color scheme alternates aquamarine with seashell peach. Through sweeping two-page spreads showing the texture of waves in decorative, woodlike patterns and through quiet interludes following Kristen’s ultimately tragic story, Dungo presents an evocative tone poem that celebrates the spirit of a young woman who clings to experience as tenaciously as a surfer riding high. Although the plot is slight, readers who appreciate the work’s meditative style will be moved by how Dungo fulfills Kristen’s dying wish: to live on through his art.