Crazy for the Storm: a Memoir of Survival by Norman Ollestad

Norman Ollestad had an unusual upbringing. It was not just that his parents were into a surfing hippie lifestyle in southern California, but he had a father who was committed to experiencing the utmost in sports and equally committed to ensuring that his son Norman followed in his footsteps. Norman was on the ski slopes at age three and ski racing and surfing on his own in elementary school. The starting point for the story is the day roughly 30 years ago when Norman, his father and father’s girlfriend are in a rented Cessna plane in the San Gabriel Mountains of southern California, and they crash. At this point Norman is 11 years old. As he describes the crash and its aftermath, this account is interspersed with a “memoir” recounting his life starting from six months before the crash. His parents are divorced, and Norman lives with his Mom and her boyfriend Nick. Nick doesn’t do sports like Norman and his Dad, but he also pushes Norman, ostensibly to guide Norman into responsible thinking, but too often criticizing and punishing him just to exercise control. Some readers may find the book’s structure awkward, with the tense post-crash survival narrative switching back to times Norman was dragged into other challenging situations by his Dad, forced to cope against his own inclination. After the crash, however, Norman is virtually alone as his Dad has been killed and Norman has to try and get himself and his Dad’s injured whiny girlfriend off the steep icy slope they crashed on. Hailed by the media as a “boy wonder” for making it down off that mountain, the book shows how having experienced fear and coping with fearful challenges in his past gave him the ability to survive the near- death scenario. The book follows Norman about two years past the event – watching him experience pain and shut down and struggle. The book does a good job of answering a lot of questions we might have about fate, unfairness, and what kind of essential attitudes we need for not just surviving, but embracing and incorporating challenges in our lives.