High Street Lows by Walker Ryan

When you’ve reached the third book, a series is truly born. Thus it’s safe to say Walker Ryan has published the first novel-length fictional series revolving around the same world. Formerly referred to by myself as the Ryaniverse™, we are thrust back into the middle of the Lissé world of professional skateboarding – a recognizable but enhanced version of the industry skaters are likely familiar with. Among other cameos, faithful readers will recognize Mo from Off Clark as well as Henry Hill from Ryan’s debut, Top Of Mason.

Highlighting yet another angle of the professional skate industry – success – High Street Lows kicks off when an Osiris D3/Janoski-like shoe deal and savvy crypto investments makes pro skater David rich beyond words. He and his girlfriend Stephanie move up to the Northern California wine town of St. Helena – Ryan’s actual hometown – and begin to partake in the good life. The excess begins to overwhelm, though, and the sudden death of Stephanie finds David struggling to find the happiness he thought he had achieved.

Genre readers will recognize the classic noir structure: the story opens as a deathbed flashback piecing together what happened. While it never reaches the full crescendo of its noir root’s moral potential, unfolding not into a sinister plot, but the normal demise of a regularly decadent life, that may be the most sinister thing of all. David’s lack of direction leads to an anxious and paranoid novel, turning the mundane realities after unspeakable tragedy into crippling depression. 

The empty skate life in a prison of success is juxtaposed against David’s best friend Corey, a skateshop owner from the east coast who never made it big as a skater for hilariously petty reasons but found peace, happiness, and contentment with his core skate life. I found the lesson I was learning from David was that leaving the thing you love – skateboarding, in his case – can create crippling stagnancy.

For me, the most poignant and interesting thread of the story is that of a gentrifying wine town. It’s an angle I had to squint at slightly to make out past my perception of Napa, but it holds water: many of the side characters are seasonal workers and their local haunt Anna’s is mentioned frequently. Among frequent references to the changes brought by Bay Area tourism are my favorite writing of all in the book: Stephanie’s research quotes about the Napa wine industry. I’m unsure if they were real people that Ryan jotted himself or his own creations, but they bring a real layered depth to the setting, both mimicking and evoking the rolling green of Northern California vineyards. When accounted altogether, High Street Lows is Ryan’s best and most complex story and does one of the best things a book about a place can do: use its characters to make it seem real, alive and, hardest of all to do – somewhere I’d like to visit.

– Abada

One of my strategies when trying to develop someone’s bio on the Womxn Skate History archive is to search a name alongside other activities, rather than just skateboarding, like surfing, snowboarding, motocross, punk music, etc. It’s not surprising that many of these historical skaters are equally talented in other arenas, or maybe had to resort to other pursuits like becoming a sponsored snowboarder when the skate industry was especially hostile towards women in the late 80s and 1990s. This approach has also led me to some interesting books!

Here are a few recommended reads that are skateboard-adjacent and aligned with this vision of giving a platform to young women:

Girl Power: Young Women Speak Out! (1995) by Hillary Carlip is a title that emerged thanks to the Riot Grrrl movement and an interest in celebrating a wide range of female experiences in the 1990s. Buried within these pages are accounts of skaters like Renee Tantillo taking up skateboarding and Ramdasha Bikceem making zines and forming their girl gang. While the term “girl power” became watered down and corporatized, this book captures an unfiltered perspective through interviews.

Pretty in Punk: Girls’ Gender Resistance in a Boys’ Subculture (1999) by Lauraine LeBlanc is one of those classic titles that helped me disrupt subculture theory which consistently positioned women in passive roles as simply girlfriends or sidekicks rather than active cultural producers. LeBlanc critiques the way that young men assume the position of rule-maker to define a community that is supposed to be “counterculture” in opposition to the mainstream. She also gives punk women a voice by interviewing them and listening to their frustrations.

Surfer Girls in the New World Order (2010) by Krista Comer is obviously focused on surfing but delves into the impact of popular media on women’s participation, alongside sexism and racism, and the globalization of surfing. While the text doesn’t dig into homophobia such as the experiences of Jodie Cooper and Pauline Menczer, there are relevant stories like organizing clinics and workshops as safe spaces for youth, and it’s more intentional than a coffee table book of surfing photos.