The Beach Boy

"The Beach Boy" is the fictionalized autobiography of William Semenow. He was born two years after the end of the Second World War into a secure and cohesive Jewish family on a small barrier island off the North Atlantic seaboard. Although the Allies had won, Nazis hadn't given up their dream of the Final Solution and seemed to be lurking in every cove and behind every sand dune.

Follow him through such tragic events as the loss of his Flash Gordon helium balloon and early the TV shows that made their indelible mark on his young and impressionable mind, changing him forever.

A move to the mainland at age ten, coupled with a change in the ethnicity of his friends, gave face to new and confusing challenges. One was a summer spent in Mexico among right-wing, neo-Nazi university students.



After university, Semenow moved to Spain to avoid the Vietnam War and found photography, love and marriage - which, in turn, led to a deep examination of philosophy and religion. After returning to the United States and continuing his education, he became a successful lawyer and family man. As he neared middle age, a new challenge faced him - Midlife crisis. His unique resolution of that crisis will surprise the reader.