Trial by Fire: 9

An unpopular girl new to the California coast dares to ride the waves with the best of the neighborhood bayboys in this surprisingly assured debut from veteran surfer Nicholson. Teenaged narrator Medina Mason escapes the grim spectacle of her parents' breakup to watch her beautiful twin brother, Jim, surf the hardest waves Palos Verdes has to offer. But when Jim (a latter day Billy Budd in a bathing suit) takes their mother's side against their philandering father, he proves less able to navigate the pressures of his new role as man of the house. Nicholson sketches Medina's parents with a convincingly adolescent eye for family dynamics--the sulky mother eats potato chips and canned cheese; the chipper heart-surgeon dad has a hungry eye for California tennis ladies--yet these caricatures take on flesh as Nicholson builds her oddly dramatic story scene by postcard-length scene. The family story is, in a sense, secondary. What really drives this coming-of-age tale is Medina's love for her troubled brother and for the ocean that challenges and briefly protects them; the book's most moving passages describe the twins' love for each other and for the beach they share. Readers who hope for no more than a few sunny capers to stave off autumnal doldrums are in for an unexpectedly affectionate, moving treat. (Oct.)