Description
Book SynopsisThe Impossible aims to get skateboarding right. Journalist Cole Louison gets inside the history, culture, and major personalities of skating.
Trade Review“David Foster Wallace on a skateboard.” — GQ “With its infectious enthusiasm, precise lyricism, and rigorous deeply-felt reporting, the book brings to life the sport’s historical roots, its cultural significance, and most of all, its artistic possibilities. I was hooked from the start. —Ian Crouch, The New Yorker “The last time I thought seriously about professional skateboarders, I was hoping to become one. This book blew it wide open for me. Until now, only obsessive freaks had any idea how interesting this sport is. And even obsessive freaks should stick around for the tale Louison has so lucidly spun. —John Jeremiah Sullivan, author of Blood Horses and Pulphead “I’d never so much as stood on a board, let alone heard the names Sheckler and Mullen, but I found myself entranced by the fascinating cultural movement they created. The Impossible is a universal story, told in imminently readable fashion by a tremendously talented writer." --Michael Koryta, New York Times best-selling author of The Ridge and Those Who Wish Me Dead “The book provides a deep and nuanced insight into how contemporary skateboarding has evolved and where it will go. It honors the beauty, danger, and complexity of the sport, and lays bare its physical and psychological demands, and greatness. The Impossible is some of the finest writing on skating I’ve seen. I read it in one sitting." —Bret Anthony Johnston, best-selling author of Corpus Christi and Remember Me Like This
