And reveals her go-to book during convalescence was Billy Finnegan's Pulitzer-winning memoir Barbarian Days!
The epithet supermodel gets thrown around a little too much, but Gemma Ward, the Perth kid who was thrown into the modelling stratosphere when she was fourteen is one of ‘em.
Gemma is thirty-seven now but at the turn of the century she became the go-to gal for the fashion mags, with her fragile alien-sorta look, wide-set eyes, porcelain skin, and a floating, otherworldly presence, insp for gals like Lily Cole and Vlada Roslyakova etc.
In 2004, she became the youngest model ever to be stuck on the cover of American Vogue. By the time she was nineteen she was making three million bucks a year and 25k a show.
Etc etc.
As it turns out Gemma Ward likes to surf. And like it so much she busted her back doin’ what used to be called the sport of kings but is now the sport of mammies and men in ponchos and surf hats.
“A lot has happened since I last posted. I broke 3 vertebrae’s in my spine from a surfing accident, flew to paris to shoot for Lancôme again which was a complete honour but in the wake of my accident I forgot to renew my passport so I had to get an emergency one and nearly missed the whole shoot,” Gemma told her 225k fans, “finished a Faber novel writing course which was phenomenal, read some great books, reflected on my life and the current state of the world.”
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One of the books Gemma finished was Billy Finnegan’s epic Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir Babs Days, famously described by one alt-right website as as anti-egalitarian, territorialist, and exclusionary.
Although Finnegan devotes a few paragraphs to how surfers were, vaguely, part of 1960s leftism, the reality is that surfing is, by its nature, anti-egalitarian, territorialist, and exclusionary. The immigration issue never comes up in Barbarian Days, but it’s clear that the best surfers’ instincts toward what they care about most, waves, are fiercely restrictionist. Surfers tend to be localists, who are like nationalist nativists, only more tribal.
You?
nothing says bad injury like a selfie….
Great book! Never heard of her…the end….
“…but is now the sport of …men in ponchos and surf hats.”
Lol. I like your way with words, journo man.
Anyway, barbarian days was the best surf book I’ve read so far, but autobiographies and biographies have always been my favourite genre so maybe I’m biased.
I started the book and lost interest…is still sitting where I left it.
Pick it up and keep reading – Finnegan is definitely from an earlier generation, but he writes very well and his surfing experiences in Hawaii, Indonesia, and South Africa are 100% authentic.
She’s only reading Finnegan because my book isn’t published until the end of September, 2025 – just finished all the last-minute corrections, etc –
The singular form of “vertebrae” is “vertebra.” The plural form is “vertebrae,” which is derived from the Latin word “vertebra” – there is no “Vertebrae’s”
Surfers are extremely territorial, exclusionary and highly tribalistic – always have been.
Bring bookburning back !
“it was the style of the time “
indeed brilliant tome
She needs to eat more. Grow some curves and boobies
Just because you ate and got boobies doesn’t mean it’ll work for her.
I get it. You like women built like a 12 year old boy. Plumbing and all
At least she’s not a hypocrite and charges, unlike this group:
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Americans seemed to have disliked it for some reason.
I liked the Kirra section.
I’m not American but still manged to dislike it, but I don’t like Tom Wolfe either, so what would I know.
What did you dislike Haz?
It was a while ago, but I thought the tone was a bit whiney. He seemed to travel everywhere but I can’t recall feeling any of the joy or humour that similar experiences brought to me at the same age. I recalled thinking that he was oh so smug about being a real live New Yorker or wherever he was from and thus so very clever BUT still being a crazy surfer guy.
….but, never having written a book gives me a pretty shaky position to criticize an award winning author. And I am a bit of a cunt as well
As for Tom Wolfe, all I read was “the right stuff”, and as for any Hagiography, not faceted enough to paint a great characterisation of Chuck Yeager, I think it was about.
copy that – the smug tone was deffo the worst bit about the book.
i thought the tone was a bit monotone, what he actually did was obviously interesting tho
I ended up hate reading it too. I was on a holiday with no access to anything else for a couple of days. Just found it a turgid read…
Seemed to take a leaf from Donald Horne when describing Australia at the time.