Big Wednesday (Deluxe Anniversary Edition)
John Milius author Denny Aaberg author
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Rare Bird Books
Published:21st Sep '23
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
Deluxe Hardcover edition, featuring a photo insert, surfing map of Southern California, eight pages of the original script to the film Big Wednedsday, essays by Roger McGrath, Tatsuo Takei, Don James, and Peter Townend, as well as John Milius' original pitch letter to Lynn Nesbit, a surf term glossary, and new afterword
Based on true events and legendary surfers of the 1960s, the Big Wednesday novel follows three Malibu surfers as the joys of youth and their carefree lifestyles are challenged by societal expectations, the looming war in Vietnam, and the inevitable passage of time. The three friends, Matt, Jack, and Leroy, go their separate ways, but are brought back together for one final challenge—the giant waves that hit Malibu and the California coast, spring 1973.
“The best movie that was made about the joy of Los Angeles is going to have to be, I think, John Milius’s Big Wednesday. It’s about surfers, over the course of an entire generation of surfers. It pretty much captures why people come to Los Angeles in the first place. It’s the edge of the continent and the rest of the world begins just a few hundred yards offshore.”
—Tom Hanks
"John had done his most personal screenplay, in my opinion. When I read Big Wednesday, I certainly thought it was his American Graffiti."
—Steven Spielberg
"John Milius was a surfer. He did hang out with a surfer crowd. He was going to try to represent that crowd the way he remembered it and the way he saw it, as opposed to the beach party movie versions of it."
—Quentin Tarantino
"Kemp’s Little brother, Denny, wrote a fine novel about surfing, Big Wednesday. I mostly remember him as a little beach rat hanging around his big brother, but later, after I read his book, I realized he’d been paying attention to everything we said and did.”
—Mike Doyle, Legendary surfer and waterman"
“The actual board I built to ride for the movie…is the very last Lightning Bolt in my personal collection. It has had a great life and pedigree to prove it. Just watch the end sequence of Big Wednesday!”
—Gerry Lopez, Legendary surfer featured in Big Wednesday
“Big Wednesday changed my life!”
—Ian Cairns, Legendary surfer featured in Big Wednesday
“The story of Big Wednesday is real, written by real surfers. The main characters, Matt Johnson, Jack Barlow, and Leroy the Masochist, are based on actual personalities from the sixties. They are universal characters who could be anywhere in the world, any town, in any period of time.”
—Peter Townsend, world champion surfer featured in Big Wednesday“Like a ground swell that improves with time and distance, Big Wednesday has aged like vintage wine, and is now considered a classic.”
—Ben Marcos, Surf writer
“Big Wednesday is one from the heart. No film, for me, has ever come as close to capturing what it must have been the feel of California in the 1960s.”
—Maxton Walker, The Guardian
"I lived every moment in the book as though I knew [the] characters and all the events that unfolded."
—Tony Miller, son of author Henry Miller
ISBN: 9781644283646
Dimensions: 215mm x 139mm x 12mm
Weight: unknown
272 pages