Every year, my book club members and I struggle with the all important “holiday book selection”.  What is it that we would like to read while on vacations with our families, hosting out of town guests or simply navigating our way around this ultra-chaotic time of year?  Our time as busy moms is already very limited,  so November and December brings us even less time to enjoy a good book.

When choosing a book during the holiday season, I try to picture myself relaxing on a beautiful beach some place very far away from my responsibilities and my desk. As it turns out, I do not find myself far from my laptop or the daily holiday grind of shopping for gifts, packing, rushing to airports and cooking.  But a girl can dream, right?  Surprisingly, I do not want a light, summer-type book during this time of year.  There is something more serious about winter and perhaps a more emotionally deep sentiment as well.  None of us want to read anything too depressing to dampen the holiday cheer, however I find stories of survival and family relationships –  lost and found at the top of my list.

This year, I plan to recommend “Crazy For The Storm” by Norman Ollestad to both my all-female book club,  and all the men I know. I stumbled upon it while standing in line at Starbucks. Not my normal book purchasing location, I’ll admit.  However, the book was prominently displayed and caught my attention with it’s subtitle “A memoir of survival”.  A quick perusal of the book flap had me hooked.  To quote the cover, “On February 19, 1979, I was in a plane crash with my father , his girlfriend Sandra, and the pilot of our chartered Cessna.  Sandra was 30 years old. My dad was 43. I was 11. Just after sunrise, we slammed into a rugged 8,600-foot mountain engulfed in a blizzard. By the end of our nine-hour ordeal, I was the only survivor.”

Norman Ollestad begins his story continuing from the book jacket quote, taking us back to his harrowing ordeal of the plane crash that cost his father his life.  However, Ollestad does not only recount his survival in detail,  but intercuts his memoir with chapters that tell of the months leading up to the crash while living with his single mother on the hippie surfer, enclave of Topanga Beach in the 1970’s. Ollestad also recounts how his lawyer dad, an avid surfer and skiier, would wake him early in the morning for freezing cold trips out to the waves or onto the slopes for expert level adventures far beyond what most of us parents would deem suitable for children. Seemingly fueled by a desire to spend quality time with his estranged father (and perhaps avoid his mother’s abusive boyfriend),  young Norman bares the elements and faces his fears of bodily harm daily.  Eventually, Norman’s skills soar to the highest levels of achievement for his age leading to him winning a number of ski competitions. Was it his father’s insistence on him participating in his favorite sports that created this success, or was Norman’s natural talents?  One thing is clear, had Norman’s father not exposed his son to danger  for many years, it is unlikely Norman would have had the courage or the know-how to walk himself off that snowy mountain all alone.

The true lure of Ollestad’s memoir, especially from a mom’s point of view, is the beautiful way in which he describes the feelings of a young boy on the cusp of manhood suddenly thrust into life’s worst nightmare and the ultimate loss of his beloved father –  all in one day. Ollestad’s lyrical writing feels emotional yet distant enough for the reader to experience the losses of young Norman without falling into melodrama or tragedy. The author clearly learned a great deal about pushing himself to the limits from his late father. However, if his father were not so insistent on chasing a constant storm, it is possible he’d be alive today to read his son’s glowing memoir.