The long - awaited autobiography of one of Australia's surfing legends. On the surface he was Tom Carroll, dreamer, cheeky grommet, brilliant surfer, Australian sporting hero, fitness fanatic, businessman, family man, big wave charger. Inside turned the terrible wheel of drug addiction, part family curse, part legacy of the footloose surf culture he'd done so much to legitimise. Tom's family and friends struggled with him, kept his secrets, and looked on in anger and fear as the wheel began to grind him down. Then a window opened - but getting through it made charging Pipeline look like a piece of cake . This is the story of an unlikely moral education: of humility, family, damage, brotherhood, youth, stupidity, glory, single - mindedness and surrender, and about the feeling of water moving under a surfboard, how it can bind past to present and make sense of lives.