There's an age when real life always seems to be somewhere else: past school, past the city, out where you don't have to wait for the waves.
Bodhi and Exo are nineteen, held back twice apiece, with that pull in their bones. One night in November 1995, after a party, they go: a Clio they've "borrowed," two surfboards, and from Genoa the border to the Basque Country is a tank of petrol away.
Out there they find the cold, the job nobody wanted, a city that learns their names, and two girls who weren't in the plan. And for a while, the life really does feel like theirs — right up until reality comes to collect.
The bajío is the sandbank you can't see, the one that shapes the wave — and, underneath it all, shapes us too. A novel with salt on its skin.
For anyone who's ever dreamed of dropping everything and leaving, and for anyone who dreams it still.
Inspired by a true story
"If it's flat, that's not the sea's fault. You're in the wrong place."