Caught Inside: Surfing and the Art of Romantic Obsession

K. Uminoko has always dated white guys, none of whom stayed around for long. So when a Keanu Reeves look-alike shows up at her local surf break, the disillusioned journalist strikes a bargain with her guiding angel to dispel her growing midlife panic. A romantic invitation launched as a magical test in wishful thinking ends in the deluded certainty that this stranger is actually in love with her.

How could a smart woman be so dumb? Uminoko is not what she pretends. Having fled the newspaper career cherished by her worried immigrant parents, she's cultivating her inner child in millennium-era Honolulu, surfing religiously, pursuing an MFA, casting the Tarot, and playing the part of a 28-year-old Hawaii girl.

Rather than face the pressures of turning forty, Uminoko fixates on surfer boy and his friends, decoding their subliminal messages and hallucinating a fairytale romance. When her private reality blows up in a public display of lunacy, Uminoko fumes at having fallen for the ordinary male agenda of owning the waves. Summoning the wisdom of her adult self, she fights back to reclaim her place at the break-and win a surprising happily ever after.

The rare surf memoir written by an ordinary woman, Caught Inside explores how easily women fall for an addiction that looks like love, in the context of a thrilling sport that doesn't always deliver on its promised escape.