Straight from the source

In his three surf noir novels — “Tapping the Source” (1984), “The Dogs of Winter” (1997) and now “Tijuana Straits” — Kem Nunn plunges into the “metaphorical dimension” of the sport.

Question: The story takes place in and around Tijuana Sloughs, where people have been surfing since the ‘30s. Why did you rename it Tijuana Straits?

Answer: My publishers were afraid no one would be able to pronounce “sloughs” [slews]. They don’t have great faith in the literacy of the American people. They thought it would be read “Tijuana Sluffs.” “Straits” connotes an element of danger, as in “dire straits,” which appealed to me.

Q: In the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s, Tijuana Sloughs was one of California’s premier big-wave spots. Why did it fall off surfing’s radar?

A: I don’t know. It may have been because of the increasing problems with water quality. Guys who live down there still surf the place, but they’ve all got stories of getting sick.

Q: Did you surf it?

A: No. The water scared me off. I got enough problems.

Q: What kind of wave is it?

A: It’s been described to me as an open-ocean wave, kind of a big rolling wave with nice shape. Really long rides, great big turns.

Q: It’s a notoriously polluted watershed, but you make it sound like it’s a beautiful place.

A: There’s an amazing amount of migratory birds and a lot of animal life on land and in the water. You get a lot of air pollution from Tijuana, but there are times when it’s really gorgeous, especially in spring when the wildflowers are in bloom.

Q: Some surfers criticize your books because of all the drugs and violence. This time, the surfer-hero is a meth-snorting worm farmer. Is that how you see the sport?

A: [Laughs] It’s a tough world out there. It’s a nasty place.

Q: I surf a lot. It’s not that nasty.

A: I’ve never felt that I needed to be an apologist for the sport of surfing. My books are very personal. I could make up stories where nothing bad ever happens, and people tend to their gardens all day long, but then the question is, ‘Why would people want to read this?’ Like Faulkner said, ‘There’s only one thing to write about: the human heart in conflict with itself.’

Q: Why do you keep coming back to surfing? Is it a device — a gimmick?

A: I like to think that it’s not. Surfing has just been a part of my life. It’s something I’ve been drawn to. For me, there’s always this metaphorical dimension to surfing. It puts you in touch with nature and the energy of nature. That feeds into this larger question of how we interact with nature and how we treat it. It had not been my intention to write about surfing again; I was actually more drawn to the border as an interesting place to set a story. I gravitated toward the inland border — El Centro, Mexicali — but it wasn’t working. At the Sloughs, you see the Tijuana bullring on one side, the hills of Point Loma on the other. You’re between worlds. I knew there was a surf spot out there, so I called [surf historian] Matt Warshaw to find out about it, and he said, ‘That’s a real Kem Nunn kind of place.’

— Steve Hawk