About May's Author

"It's hard to get people in New York to take books with surfers and bikers in them seriously."

As Megan noted , TAPPING THE SOURCE garnered a National Book Award Best First Fiction nomination for Kem Nunn. Published in 1984, it's been suggested the book was an influence for 1991's POINT BREAK. When asked about that, someone commented Nunn was "taciturn on the subject."

James Frey calls TAPPING THE SOURCE one of the top 10 books to read about Los Angeles.

In addition to being a novelist, Nunn has worked as a screenwriter. From what I've been able to gather, he's done quite a bit of rewriting (including the 1998 Kevin Bacon / Matt Dillon thriller WILD THINGS).

In the mid-aughts, Nunn hooked up with David Milch and served as a writer for DEADWOOD. The connection between the two continued as they co-created the HBO series JOHN FROM CINCINNATI.



Slate.com did a story about what JFC gets right about surfing.

In 2004 Kem Nunn spoke with Bookbuffet about TIJUANA STRAITS, the third book in his "surf-trilogy" which appears to have influenced JOHN FROM CINCINNATI. In the interview (audio files available) he discusses what it was like growing up in Southern California and how he came to surfing.

(FYI: All the above links are spoiler-free, go ahead and click 'em.)

All this really has me stoked for Sunday’s book club meeting, brah!