Book 54: Stalefish

Stalefish: Sakeboard Culture from the Rejects Who Made It
Sean Mortimer

Since I am now entering the busy part of my semester, it was good fortune that my hold for this book finally came through just as my semester is heating up. This book is purely fun reading, an escapist journey for both those within and out of the current skate culture. As the title suggests (it's the name of a skateboarding trick), a basic familiarity with the skateboarding world and some of its lingo and history are required for getting anything out of this book, but Sean Mortimer largely succeeds in his mission to bring skating's history to the kids today who may have no idea where their own beloved culture comes from. The book is less a history than a collection of carefully edited and compiled interviews, comprising everything from the first skateboarders in the 1960s through freestyle and pool riding and into current giants Tony Hawk, Bob Burnquist, and Daewon Song. The book chronicles the history of skating through several thematic chapters that hang together loosely and, naturally, bleed into one another. Throughout, the skaters are open about the art of skateboarding and what it means to them- an interesting consequence of the multiple interview format is that Mortimer elicits conflicting views from skaters on everything from preferred formats to whether skating should be considered a sport. Without editing in a way that seems to bias the narrative, Mortimer takes the words of the skaters and keeps them in context, shunning the kind of bombastic arguments propagated by cable news outlets for the book's true form and the kind of history that current skaters need to appreciate the unique, ground-up history of the...activity: Stalefish is a bunch of devoted, influential skaters talking about what they love and the culture that defines them. They are obviously sincere throughout and, together, comprise a many-sided view of the history of skateboarding. Complete with plenty of pictures, Stalefish is a quick and relatively lighthearted read perfect for anyone enthralled by the art of skating. There is no definite history here and the views are all objective, so newcomers may want to stay away, but anyone with a vague familiarity with skating should eagerly take this opportunity to see the skateboarding world from the eyes of those who, more than any others, intitially shaped and still continue to define it.

Grade: A