Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir of Survival (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Best of the Month, June 2009: The story itself could take your breath away: an 11-year-old boy, the only survivor of a small-plane crash in the San Gabriel Mountains in 1979, makes his way to safety down an icy mountain face in a blizzard, using the skills and determination he learned from his father. But it's the way that Norman Ollestad tells his tale that makes Crazy for the Storm a memoir that will last. He almost has too much to tell: a way-larger-than-life father--former child actor, FBI man (who took on Hoover in a controversial book), and surfer who drove his son to test his limits in the surf and on the slopes; a youth spent in the short-lived counterculture paradise of Topanga Canyon; a stepfather who could give Tobias Wolff's a run for his money; and of course the crash. But writing 30 years later, Ollestad is wise and talented enough to focus his story on the essentials, cutting elegantly back and forth between a moment-by-moment account of the crash and his memories of the difficult but often idyllic year leading up to it. More than a story of survival, it's a time-tempered reckoning with what it means to be a father and a son. --Tom Nissley

Amazon Exclusive Essay: It Starts With a Good Story by Norman Ollestad

It was time for my eight-year old son, Noah, to read before bed. "Eh," he groaned. "Reading is so boring. It sucks." He’d been reciting this same mantra for months. I was resting beside him in his bed and I saw his whole life crumble--a slew of poor report cards and father-son arguments, ending in long term unemployment. "What about Dr. Seuss?" I reasoned. He glared at me with his brown eyes. "It's okay," he mumbled. I opened the book he was reading for his class and handed it to him. He stared at it, mute. "Noah," I said from my lowest register. He proceeded to read at a snail's pace and I pointed out that it would take him twice as long as usual to get through the required five pages. So he ran the words together, not even stopping at periods. I grabbed the book and told him we'd be reading all weekend to make up for his lack of cooperation. For months I coerced him like that, urging him past his lazy monotone, trying to get him to connect with the story. It was a long few months.

When I was Noah's age I also disliked reading. I just wanted to hear the story without having to work for it. I had wished my dad could work the same kind of magic he did with surfing: he'd push me into the waves so that I could simply enjoy the ride, eliminating the most arduous, frustrating part of surfing--paddling for the wave.

My father was always asking my mother, who was a grade-school teacher, why I wasn't a better reader. She advocated patience, and encouraged me by tirelessly pointing out things in each story that I might relate to. My father was killed when I was eleven, so he never got to witness my eventual love of reading.

In order to help Noah find that love, I searched for a seminal moment in my past that had transformed me. There was no single thing. But during my reminiscences I flashed on Dad reading aloud my grandparents' monthly letters from Mexico. They had retired to Puerto Vallarta and their letters were filled with stories. Stories about an inland village where Grandpa went twice a week to buy ice for their fridge, to keep their food cold. Stories about helping a Mexican family after a hurricane hit Puerto Vallarta. Stories of secret waterfalls and secluded isthmuses that Grandpa and Grandma had discovered around Vallarta. And that’s when it hit me--it was very simple: the essence of my love for reading really emanates from my love for stories.

"How about I tell you a story tonight," I whispered with great zeal to Noah. His eyes lit up and he smiled. "What kind of story?"

"Any kind," I said.

"A story about a magic skateboard would be cool," he suggested. As I spun the impromptu tale, he rolled onto his side and stared at me, totally focused. The following night I made a bargain with him: "First read five pages, then I'll work up a story about whatever you want." Before I got myself nestled beside him, he was halfway through the first page. Progressively, Noah's topics became more elaborate, and soon he was giving me outlines for stories. Somewhere along the line his reading voice changed--he was gobbling up the sentences, his voice alive with inflection. He'd broken through. Noah was hooked on stories, like I got hooked on riding waves. Once he'd experienced the pleasure of going on that narrative ride, reading became second nature, like paddling for a wave. It all starts with a good story.

Photographs from Crazy For the Storm

(Click to Enlarge)

My first surfboard, Topanga Beach, 1968	Mom, Dad, and Me, Topanga Beach, 1968	Dad in St. Anton, Austria, Early 1970's	St. Anton with Dad

Me, Ski racing	Skiing with Dad	Puerto Vallarta, 1975	Three generations of Normans, 1977

From Publishers Weekly

In a spare, brisk prose, Ollestad tells the tragic story of the pivotal event of his life, an airplane crash into the side of a mountain that cost three lives, including his father's, in 1979. Only 11 years old at the time, he alone survived, using the athletic skills he learned in competitive downhill skiing, amid the twisted wreckage, the bodies and the bone-chilling cold of the blizzard atop the 8,600-foot mountain. Although the narrative core of the memoir remains the horrifying plane crackup into the San Gabriel Mountains, its warm, complex soul is conveyed by the loving relationship between the former FBI agent father and his son, affectionately called the Boy Wonder, during the golden childhood years spent in wild, freewheeling Malibu and Mexico in the late 1970s. Ollestad's unyielding concentration on the themes of courage, love and endurance seep into every character portrait, every scene, making this book an inspiring, fascinating read. (May)
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Ecco; First edition. edition (June 2, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061766720
• ISBN-13: 978-0061766725
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (106 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #504 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #34 in	Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Memoirs

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

69 of 75 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A FULL-HEARTED BEAUTY OF A BOOK, May 14, 2009

By	Rick (Manchester, NH) - See all my reviews

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.

36 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Tale of a Plane Crash - and so much more, May 21, 2009

By	C. Bayne "katluvr_1" (Phoenix, AZ United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

(What's this?)

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.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Strength Found Within ..., May 16, 2009

By	Christy Smith "Christy" (With All The Wild Monkeys) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

(What's this?)

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!