Overview

Welcome to Paradise, Now Go to Hell, is surfer and former war reporter Chas Smith's wild and unflinching look at the high-stakes world of surfing on Oahu's North Shore--a riveting, often humorous, account of beauty, greed, danger, and crime. For two months every winter, when Pacific storms make landfall, swarms of mainlanders, Brazilians, Australians, and Europeans flock to Oahu's paradisiacal North Shore in pursuit of some of the greatest waves on earth for surfing's Triple Crown competition. Chas Smith reveals how this influx transforms a sleepy, laid-back strip of coast into a lawless, violent, drug-addled, and adrenaline-soaked mecca. Smith captures this exciting and dangerous place where locals, outsiders, the surf industry, and criminal elements clash in a fascinating look at class, race, power, money, and crime, set within one of the most beautiful places on earth. The result is a breathtaking blend of crime and adventure that captures the allure and wickedness of this idyllic golden world.

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Chas Smith is the author of Welcome to Paradise, Now Go to Hell, which was optioned for television by Fox 21 (Homeland and Sons of Anarchy) with producers at Television 360 (Game of Thrones) and a finalist for the PEN Center USA Award for Nonfiction. Chas began his writing career as a foreign correspondent, penning pieces for Vice, Paper, and Blackbook, amongst others, from Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Somalia, Azerbaijan, and Colombia, which led to a brief career as a war correspondent for Current TV. After being kidnapped by Hezbollah during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war he transitioned to surf journalism where he was a featured writer at the brash Stab before becoming editor at large at Surfing Magazine. There he developed a reputation as the most controversial voices in the space. Matt Warshaw, author of the Encyclopedia of Surfing, calls him, Bright and hyper-ironic. William Finnegan, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Barbarian Days, says that Chas, . . . calls it like he sees it and in surfing that's not usually the case. Chas Smith is the co-owner of a surf website, BeachGrit. Chas Smith is the author of Welcome to Paradise, Now Go to Hell, which was optioned for television by Fox 21 (Homeland and Sons of Anarchy) with producers at Television 360 (Game of Thrones) and a finalist for the PEN Center USA Award for Nonfiction. Chas began his writing career as a foreign correspondent, penning pieces for Vice, Paper, and Blackbook, amongst others, from Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Somalia, Azerbaijan, and Colombia, which led to a brief career as a war correspondent for Current TV. After being kidnapped by Hezbollah during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war he transitioned to surf journalism where he was a featured writer at the brash Stab before becoming editor at large at Surfing Magazine. There he developed a reputation as the most controversial voices in the space. Matt Warshaw, author of the Encyclopedia of Surfing, calls him, Bright and hyper-ironic. William Finnegan, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Barbarian Days, says that Chas, . . . calls it like he sees it and in surfing that's not usually the case. Chas Smith is the co-owner of a surf website, BeachGrit.

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