This Is Really a Love Story: A Guest Post by David Litt
Two unlikely companions bonding over the surf in a raucous, insightful and timely memoir about human connection and the schisms that separate us from each other. Read on for an exclusive essay from David Litt on writing It’s Only Drowning.
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It's Only Drowning: A True Story of Learning to Surf and the Search for Common Ground
It's Only Drowning: A True Story of Learning to Surf and the Search for Common Ground
By David Litt
In Stock Online
Hardcover
$26.99
$29.99
A former Obama speechwriter moves to the Jersey Shore and learns to surf with the help of his brother-in-law: a tattooed, truck-driving Joe Rogan superfan.
A former Obama speechwriter moves to the Jersey Shore and learns to surf with the help of his brother-in-law: a tattooed, truck-driving Joe Rogan superfan.
The screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna once said that no matter the genre, there will come a time when a writer realizes, “This is really a love story!”
That’s what happened with It’s Only Drowning. I thought I was writing a memoir about an out-of-shape speechwriter learning to surf at the advanced age of thirty-five. There were lots of embarrassing tumbles into the ocean. There were sharks.
But as I worked on this book, I began to notice how I felt after the end of each writing session. Some days left me certain that being an author is a miserable job and no one should ever do it. Other days left me equally certain that being an author is an incredible job and I’m the luckiest person in the world. I soon realized that all of the luckiest-person-in-the-world days came when I was writing about the same topic: my unlikely friendship with my brother-in-law, Matt.
Matt and I have almost nothing in common. He’s an electrician who deals with the risk of violent shocks; the greatest health hazard in my job is carpal tunnel. He lifts weights to death metal; I jog to Lizzo. I wrote speeches for Obama; Matt is Joe Rogan’s biggest fan. Most difficult of all, during the pandemic, we found ourselves on opposite sides of the vaccination fault line.
But in 2022, after moving to the Jersey Shore, I started surfing. I wanted to get good enough to make it to one of Hawaii’s most famously dangerous breaks, I needed a partner in the water, and the list of other surfers I knew was exactly one name long. Suddenly, Matt and I began spending time together, both in and out of the ocean.
I’d always loved odd-couple comedies. Now, I found myself living one.
What started as a story about surfing became a story of unlikely friendship. There are still plenty of embarrassing tumbles. There are still sharks. (Their names are Freya and Barry, by the way.) But I think the moments you’ll remember after putting down this book are about Matt and me. Our fierce argument involving frozen pizza. Our delight at realizing we both love Taylor Swift. “Le snake.”
Almost a decade after leaving the White House, I believed my days of writing about hope and change were behind me. But as I revised and re-revised this book, I realized that wasn’t true. It’s Only Drowning is the story of how – with the help of someone I still strongly believe is a crazy person – I changed for the better. And as you read about two flawed humans with a shared interest who found a way to friendship, I think you’ll feel some much-needed hope.
