CRAZY FOR THE STORM: A Memoir of Survival. Norman Ollestad. Ecco. 272 pages. $25.99.

Tucked into a canvas carrier on his father's back, tiny arms and legs clinging to dad's torso, Norman Ollestad surfed California's Topanga Beach at the tender age of 1. By 4, Norman had ''carved up'' most of the advanced ski trails at Mammoth, a California ski resort. By 11, he had surfed ''perfect left-hand tubes'' in Mexico and won first place in a championship ski race.

The elder Norman Ollestad, a lawyer and former child actor, wanted his son to reach beyond physical fear and into ecstasy, to a place where danger melted into bliss. Yet no one could have anticipated the challenge 11-year-old Norman would face on Feb. 19, 1979.

That morning, Norman, his father and his father's girlfriend were passengers in a chartered Cessna, flying from Los Angeles to Big Bear City. Including the pilot, there were four people aboard when the tiny plane flew off course and smashed into an 8,600-foot mountain in a raging blizzard. Norman's father and the pilot were dead on impact. Sandra, the girlfriend, lived for a few hours under Norman's care but ultimately succumbed to the unforgiving terrain.

For nine hours, Norman clawed, gripped, shimmied and slid his way down the mountain, an almost vertical sheet of ice. As darkness fell, he reached civilization.

Crazy for the Storm is Ollestad's recollection of his final months with his father and the plane crash that separated them forever. It's also a captivating look at the less-than-perfect domestic scene with Norman's mom and her live-in boyfriend, and California's beach culture in the 1970s.

Ollestad organizes the memoir dramatically, moving back and forth between regular life and the crash and its immediate aftermath. As readers watch Norman's slow descent down the mountain, they also get to know his father, a man who amazed his son with his ability to enchant, to dodge danger with a guitar and a song.

The book's structure mimics the constant back-and-forth of Norman's young life. At home with his mom, he's under the thumb of her boyfriend, a hard drinker and rigid taskmaster. Life with Dad, whose remarkable career included working for the FBI and then writing a book exposing J. Edgar Hoover's hypocrisies, is scary in a different way.

Throughout, Ollestad's prose is crisp and exacting, a controlled approach to his tumultuous past. Here's how he describes surfing into a tube of water on the Mexican coast: ``The ominous wall had bent and wrapped me in its peaceful womb.''

There's enough drama in the plane crash alone to sustain a novel, but Ollestad has done something much more. He's written a beautiful story about a thrill-loving father -- ''the man with the sunshine in his eyes'' -- who taught his boy not just how to live but also but how to thrive.

Maggie Galehouse reviewed this book for The Houston Chronicle.

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