Ah, surfers. Those adorable inarticulate stoners with sun-bleached hair, the carefree cowboys of the sea. Back in the days between Elvis and the Beatles, when Kennedy was king and gas was cheap, they were America's dreams. Basking on the beach, having fun in the sun, the rat race held at arm's length--the way we would be, if only we didn't have that pesky mortgage payment.But what if there were...more to them?This is the story of Tom Beck, son of a Holocaust survivor mother and an abusive father, his beloved grandfather lost to suicide. Surf is his asylum. It's 1962, he's nearly 20 and going nowhere, when he falls hard for Georgia, a wealthy, strong-minded Jewish girl. His prayers for a happier life have been answered at last. He opens a shop with his best friend, selling surf gear for enough money to pop the question-but it turns out Georgia has other plans.The Sunlight Zone is a romantic thriller that examines the Gidget Paradox and surfer antipathy towards the Beach Boys and commercialism, Surf Nazis (yes, Virginia, they exist), and the correlations between Judaism and film, Dick Dale and Angeleno architecture, the Twilight Zone and early 60's culture.