After moving from Washington, DC, to the Jersey Shore, a former speechwriter for President Obama starts surfing at the age of thirty-fivethe rough equivalent of beginning guitar lessons on your deathbedand must turn for help to the only other surfer he knows: a tattooed, truck-driving, Joe Rogan superfan who happens to be his brother-in-law.

David Litt, the Yale-educated writer with a sensible fear of sharks, and Matt, the daredevil electrician with two motorcycles and a passion for death metal, had always coexisted from a comfortable distance as brothers-in-law. Yet in 2021, as David wallowed in existential dread while Americas crises piled up, he couldnt help but notice that Matt was thriving. When he wasnt making money rewiring New Jersey beach homes, Matt was riding waves at his favorite spots in the state.

Quietly, David started taking surfing lessons. For a few months, he suffered through wipeouts on waves the height of daffodils. But to his surprise, he soon became obsessed. And once he got a sense of the ways that fully committing to surfing could change him both in the water and on land, he set his sights on an unlikely goal: riding a big wave at Hawaiis famously dangerous North Shore. To get there, hed need Matts help.

At a moment when the fault lines of class, education, and culture threaten to tear our country apart, Its Only Drowning is a blueprint for becoming braver at a time when it takes courage just to read the news, a love letter to surfing in the vein of William Finnegans Barbarian Days, and a poignant buddy comedy in the tradition of Bill Brysons A Walk in the Woods.