WELCOME TO PARADISE, NOW GO TO HELL

Journalist and surfer Chas Smith's WELCOME TO PARADISE, NOW GO TO HELL is a narrative account of the 2012 surfing Triple down on Oahu's fabled North Shore, which for a few months every year becomes the seven billion-dollar industry's capital of hazing, gangs, hedonism, extortion, murder, and drugs while extraordinary athletes dance on fifty foot waves.

Each winter the North Shore of Hawaii is invaded by surfers, photographers, marketing executives, groupies, and drug dealers from around the world. Tension between the locals and the visitors is thick and often violent. Ostensibly, then draw is the seven-mile stretch of beach with fifty-foot waves and the chance to win surfing's World Title as well as The Triple Crown — the most important contests in the sport of surfing happen here. The real motives, however, are more nuanced — or more base — depending on how one categorizes hazing, gangs, hedonism, extortion, murder, drugs (both performance enhancing and diminishing) and riding massive waves. In WELCOME TO PARADISE, NOW GO TO HELL journalist and lifelong surfer Chas Smith uses one hugely anticipated season as the narrative arc to reveal the singular culture, history, personalities, feuds and athleticism that make the North Shore surfing's mecca. Chas has spent six consecutive four-month season there and has unprecedented access. Not only is he the most highly regarded and widely read writer in surfing (a seven billion dollar-a-year industry complete with million dollar contests, celebrity surfers, mainstream press coverage and bestselling books), but “Fast” Eddie Rothman has granted him exclusive interviews. For more than forty years the Philadelphia born Jewish surfer has lead Da Hui O He’e Nalu, or the Black Shorts, a mafia-like gang of locals who control every aspect of the surf season except the weather. Billion dollar surf brands pay him protection money just so that their pros can compete, journalists cover who he tells them to cover and he has any surfer who drops in is severely beaten (there are only so many rideable waves, after all). The battle for the 2012 Triple Crown has been the most explosive in decades. North Shore local John John Florence, who was literally born on the beach, is riding against the surf industry's Californian darling Kolohe Andino, the son of a champion surfer who's been groomed for this since he was a toddler. The real prize might be one of their respective camps winning the soul of the North Shore itself. This is Robert Sabbag territory; like Sabbag's classic bestsellers Snowblind (about cocaine) and Loaded (about marijuana), WELCOME TO PARADISE, NOW GO TO HELL is hip, funny, provocative, utterly convincing, charged with energy, impeccably researched — and a wild, wild ride. Chas Smith is a regular contributor and editor at large at Surfing Magazine. He has also contributed Vice, GQ, Blackbook, Stab and the New York Times T Magazine.