RACING WITH ALOHA

In this debut memoir about growing up in Hawaii, a man reflects on a life spent in the water.

Haywood was born on Maui in 1949, after his parents relocated from San Francisco. His father was a doctor for the sugar plantations, working at a hospital and making house calls at the plantation camps. The author’s dad is a central figure in the book, a lover of the outdoors who taught his children the importance of hard work and humility. The opening chapters are full of observations of island culture and awe for the natural beauty that was the kids’ childhood backyard. Competitive swimming soon takes over the memoir. “Swimming was second nature to us,” Haywood recounts, “and second in priority to our schoolwork.” The author, in his high school years, became a formidable backstroker. After transferring to a high school in California for his senior year to focus on his training, he won the backstroke competition at the Amateur Athletic Union Indoor Championships. He earned a spot at Stanford, where the swimming came easier than the academics. An atrial fibrillation—an irregular heartbeat—put his swimming career in jeopardy, and Haywood began to consider life after college. He returned to Maui, looking for work, and after several false starts, he settled into real estate. He also seriously took up surfing, even traveling to Indonesia in search of great waves. Soon, he found a new passion, windsurfing, a sport in its infancy. The author became a pioneer, devising innovations in technique and equipment. Haywood’s swiftly paced book is a straightforward, compact account of growing up, told in steady prose that sometimes resorts to clichéd phrases. But the author draws a rich and detailed portrait of Maui, capturing an island developing quickly amid the swirls of change in the latter half of the 20th century. His writing on water sports is compelling and vivid with action. From start to finish, his affection for Maui shines through: “I will always come home to Maui because Maui will always be home.”

A concise, vibrant, and fast-moving tribute to sports and home.