Customer Reviews

Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir of Survival

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Sons--give a copy of CRAZY FOR THE STORM to your fathers. Fathers--give a copy to your sons. And everyone else--share this harrowing and luminous story with someone special in your life.

Norman Ollestad's memoir has so many things going for it I'm not even quite sure where to begin. The tragic event at the core of the story will be well documented so I'll focus on the book's numerous other qualities.

On some level, every son will recognize in himself the relationship between Norman and his father with its profoundly human emotional intricacies--a yearning to please, simmering resentment, subsequent guilt, enduring loyalty and love. Ollestad brings these to the surface in such a truthful way that--as a reader--you can't help but look in the mirror and take some time to reflect on your own journey.

I also enjoyed greatly Ollestad's ability to transport me to places I've never been--the sun-soaked beaches of southern California's bohemian surf culture, the ice-capped peaks of the San Gabriel Mountains. You are there throughout with young Norman as he crosses the threshhold into manhood, aided by the wisdom and lessons of his late-father, whom he tragically loses.

This isn't my type of book, but I managed to finish it in two days. This is the story of a plane crash at 8600 feet in a snowstorm and how an 11-year-old crawled and slid down the mountain to safety. It's a story about death, but it's even more about life and living life to the fullest. It's about how a free spirit father forced his son to push through fear to experience life.

I wasn't sure about the writing style at first - Norman Ollestad trades chapters back and forth between the crash and immediate aftermath, and events that happened the year before and up to getting in the plane on that fateful morning. There is a lot of dialogue in this book, but there are no quotation marks, which threw me for a chapter or two, but then lent the entire story a hazy, memory quality to. It almost had a stream of consciousness feeling to it, though the story is told in a linear way and doesn't really veer off into unrelated tangents.

After a couple of chapters, I settled in and enjoyed the spare, crisp, dreamlike style. The writing is pure, and I felt like I was there, both struggling to get down the mountain, and mastering fear to get through the waves. I don't know anything about surfing or skiing, but the author conveyed the sensations of flying through the world with fear and lightness. He conveyed how the things his father taught him saved him after the crash.

This is a fascinating story, and I'm glad I read it.

Norman Ollestad Jr and his dad were enroute to Big Bear Mountain when they ran into a storm. Unaware that he'd lost his bearings, the pilot of their small plane crashed into Ontario Peak. Norman Ollestad Sr died as a result of the impact.

Fortunately, Ollestad Sr. lived and raised his son to push limits and move beyond fear. Although he regularly put Norman Jr. in precarious spots, he simultaneously taught him to keep his wits about him in dangerous and unpredictable situations. It was this training that helped Ollestad Jr. keep his wits about him and survive the true life and death battle after the crash.

"Crazy for the Storm" isn't written in a "linear" format. The story moves back and forth between other events in Ollestad Jr.'s life and then back to the crash. For this particular story, this style didn't work for me. I kept wishing we could get back to the crash.

Additionally, the events specifically relating to the crash are vivid, tense, and "in the moment". The other events seem muted and distant, as if they occurred in a detached dream world. They didn't come out and draw me in.

I think that guys who are into extreme sport lifestyles will like this book. It will resonate with them and maybe they'll enjoy the coming of age events that are interspersed between the crash narrative.

For those of you who dig this kind of lifestyle, you may want to look up the video of Ollestad Jr. speaking of his experiences personally. I wasn't wild over the book, but the video definitely added a new dimension to the story for me. ETA: He is a riveting speaker and as I was listening to him, I kept wishing he had written the book in that "voice". It would have taken the book to a different level.

This is an autobiography of Norman Ollestad and his father which focuses on his relationship with his Dad and how his father taught him to find his inner strength, both emotionally and physically, to climb down a mountain and become the only survivor of a plane crash that killed everyone else on board. The book is very well written and quite an eye-opener. Norman, who is an 11 year old boy at the time, and his father are in a small plane that crashes high on a snow-covered mountain. The boy alone survives. This is the story of how his relationship with his free spirited, yet demanding father gave him the tools he needed to make it down the mountain. I was initially irritated by the alternating chapters, however as the book progressed I became more and more interested in the underpinnings of his relationships with his parents, especially his father. I would highly recommend this book, it is a great read!

I bought this book after seeing it make appearances on most of the best-seller lists. This is a "Memoir of Survival" according to the subtitle, and it tells of Ollestad's survival after a plane crash that took the life of his father and his father's fiancee. Though that plane crash provides some cohesion to the story and though it was a life-defining event, it was a matter of only a few hours. So the survival in the story is much deeper-rooted in Ollestad's story of his relationship to his father. His father was a strange, egocentric man who had a very odd relationship to his son, constantly pushing him to do things he had no desire to do. Ollestad both idolized and despised his father. The story is interesting enough, I suppose, but after reading to the end I could think of few reasons that I would want to recommend this to anyone else beyond the usual human interest reasons. Though there is nothing inherently wrong with the book, I also did not find enough right with it that I'd recommend it to others. I wouldn't bother with it.

I'm a sucker for a good survival story and have read most of them. This one, however, was disappointing. The story is reasonably compelling (crazy, narcissistic dad pushes his son relentlessly and by doing so unwittingly prepares his son for the challenge of his life). Unfortunately, the writing is very basic and plain. In fact, the writing is so limited that it's hard to understand and visualize some of his descriptions which is frustrating. Also, I have a hard time reading about the author's dad who is so reckless that the kid is lucky to have survived his dad (let alone the plane crash). In the end I think we're supposed to buy into this idealized vision of his dad. No thanks.

Norman Ollestad's memoir of his preteen years centers around the colorful figure of his father, also named Norman. His father was in equal measures liberal, intellectual, athletic, hip, handsome, and a crazy thrill seeking risk-taker. The fact Norman Sr. did not live under the same roof (he was divorced from Norman's mother) was almost a good thing giving "Ollestad" (Norman's pet name as preferred by his dad) some much needed rest between exploits.

"Crazy For The Storm: A Memoir Of Survival" tells the tale of an exceptional bond between a slightly crazed, but oh so charismatic, father and his son who realizes his dad for whatever flaws he may possess is the most incredible role model ever. The book is a loving homage to Normal Ollestad Sr. based on Norman Jr.'s survival from the plane crash that took his father's life. The exceptional father son relationship is very colorfully described through the extreme sports they shared and one very cinematic trip they made deep into Mexico and barely survived!

I must say I was very entertained by this true story. Though it had a tragic twist it is ultimately celebrating Norman's love and admiration of his father which Norman believes groomed him to be a survivor who loves and embraces life. This is a very quick and well written book that is quite engaging, I enjoyed it immensely and highly recommend it.

I loved this book! I started it..... and had to go to bed when I was 3/4 through it..... and couldn't wait to get home from work the next day to finish it. When I went to Youtube and watched the video of little Norman giving his TV interview after the incident, I could not believe how little he looks! He was just a little boy! Eleven years old! He did what many survivalists I have read about could not do.... he came to a quick conclusion (that he had to get off the mountain NOW), and he executed his plan and it worked out for him, thank goodness.

Of course he credits his father for teaching him the skills to do what he had to do to save his life, but of course I never forgot for one second that he was IN this predicament BECAUSE of his father, so it's a good thing it worked out for him. He showed presence of mind and an impressive fortitude that many adults don't have.

I loved the brisk writing style; it had just enough description to place the reader in the spot, but not enough to get in the way of the action.

The book left me with a few questions at the end: What became of his mother and her abusive alcoholic boyfriend? Did she continue as an elementary school teacher? Also, what kind of education did the author finally get? It mentions that he went to UCLA, but that could just mean that he took one class. I do have to say that I was quite disturbed that he is now treating his son pretty much the way his father treated him, falling just short of the extremes. The scene at the end of the book when they are skiing and his son is bawling his head off because he is so scared made me mad. HOW could he watch his son in the very same agony he had been in so many times? It just doesn't make any sense to me. I kept thinking about that scene in the movie Giant where Rock Hudson's son is placed on a huge horse and he is crying his eyes out, but his dad makes him ride it anyway. Hello? Not EVERY son wants to do, or is capable of doing, what his father does. Is this hubris on the part of the adults? Or stupidity? Or payback time?

In any case, the book is certainly a rip-roaring account of survival and I am glad the author finally got to write it. I am sure the plane crash and its aftermath have haunted him in some way or another for all these years. Maybe now he can put it behind him. Maybe now he can let up on his son and see what his SON might want to do with his life. After all, the author had always wanted to be a writer, and now he is doing it. I wonder if he would have been allowed to write had his father lived longer?

There is a line near the beginning of "Crazy for the Storm" that I think is very telling about the whole book.

"He had taught me to ride big waves, had pulled me from tree wells and fished me out of suffocating powder. Now it was my turn to save him."

The author, Norman Ollestad, says this about his father (also Norman Ollestad), after the plane crash that took his father's life and stranded him on a mountain, alone.

The reason I find it telling, is that as I read through the book, I found far more places where the son is saving the father, or at least living the life the father had wanted for himself. Norman's father exposed him to so many dangerous situations (many that these days he'd probably get arrested for, per the author) but by doing so, also gave him the tools and the inner strength to survive.

"We stared at each other. I saw him so clearly. The cranium shelf rising off his forehead bumpy and uneven, the cluster of diamonds in the blue of his eyes fragile cracked windows, and I saw someone younger and full of grand ambitions and I thought about how he had wanted to be a professional basketball player. He looked at me as if into a mirror, studying me, like I was holding something that he admired, even desired."

The author does a good job balancing the voice of his younger self, often angry at his father for making him live a different life, making him ski and surf and take risks that he didn't want to...with the admiration he now feels for his father. Though Ollestad is making different choices now with his own son, Noah, the lessons taught to him as a child have taken deep root.

His father's voice is always in the background...not only in the decisions he makes regarding his own son, but all throughout the book.

"All I care about is that you keep going, Boy Wonder. Don't get stuck on how you finished last time or the turn you just made. Go after the next one with all you've got."

Moments like that were the strongest part of this book. Though I thought I'd be more drawn to the crash itself and the miracle that an 11-year old boy was the only survivor and managed to get down a mountain in the winter by himself...it was the father/son relationships that were more powerful. The crash details (and some of the descriptions of surfing and skiing) that got too technical for me since I am unfamiliar with those worlds.

The writing was at times very choppy...short, staccato sentences that broke up the flow of other, very lyrical passages.

Agree or disagree with a father making his son take incredible risks, living a different life than the son wanted to at the time, in the end the author lets go of the right or wrong of his life. He maintains his love for his father, appreciates the gifts that came from the way he was raised, and has a wealth of experience, good and bad, with which to guide his own son. In the end, he has the memory of his father and the reality of his son.

"I guessed that at some point during his run, Noah had broken through the storm and locked into the bliss of his victory, the bliss of his connection to the ineffable - that sacred place unveiled to me, and now to my son, by the man with the sunshine in his eyes. There are few joys in life that can compare to that."

I really was looking forward to this book. I absolutely love tales of survival (or trying to survive). 2 of my favorite books are Jon Krakauer's "Into the Wild" and "Into Thin Air," and I've read a number of books about failed attempts on Everest & K2.

Unfortunately, I really did not like this author's writing style. It is much too gritty and graphic for my taste, and I only got part way through the book. Reading it made me feel queasy, so I finally decided I didn't want to keep reading.

The book starts with a bang, with a detailed account of the crash, which really drew me in. Then it went to his life a year prior, and alternated chapters between the crash and his previous life. It was the non-crash chapters that really got to me. He discussed in pretty graphic detail his mom's relationship with her abusive boyfriend, using some pretty rough language. He also details stopping to look in the neighbor's window and watching them having sex (f___ing, as he describes it).

It just seems to me that there was less about the story, and more shock factor in this book. It is very graphic, both with language and sex. Some of the descriptions of the crash are also very graphic...I really did not need the mental picture of the pilot's nose having come off leaving a gaping hole that was quickly filling with snow.

Bottom line: If you like gritty, graphic stories, you may enjoy this. If you are looking for an interesting tale of survival because you like the uplifting feeling when they manage to survive (and maybe learning some survival skills), or you want to empathize with the main characters, then this is not the book for you.