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 wishful test of magical thinking ends only in the foolish conviction that this stranger is truly in love with her.

How could a smart woman be so dumb? Uminoko is not what she pretends. Having fled the newspaper career treasured by her ambitious immigrant parents, she's cultivating her inner child in Honolulu, studying art, surfing every day, and smoking a ton of weed.

Rather than face her panic at turning forty, Uminoko fixates on surfer boy and his friends, decoding their subliminal messages and hallucinating a fairytale romance. When her deluded fantasy blows up in a public display of lunacy, Uminoko fumes at having fallen for an adolescent male game of owning the waves. Drawing upon the inner resources of her forty-year-old self, she fights to reclaim her dignity and rightful place at the surf break-and wins 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 resembles love, and the seduction of a thrilling sport that doesn't always deliver on its promised escape.