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Title: The Lost Legends of New Jersey by Frederick Reiken ISBN: 0-15-601094-1 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 05 July, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.51 (37 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A wonderful book
Comment: Sure, I grew up in Morristown and thus immediately identified with Reiken's setting (Livingston, NJ; the Turtle Back Zoo; the Jersey shore) and the characters. But Reiken's talent is taking the ordinary--the lives of a middle class New Jersey family--and digging until the magic appears. And magic is what we get from every point of view in this book.
Anthony, the teenage hockey star, is our first-person character, and through him we learn about the world his family inhabits: its geographical location as well as its emotional landscape. The joy of the story is moving from this first person to the points of view of his father, his mother, his neighbor, and a few other characters who inhabit this space. All are searching or longing for connections, deeply personal connections. In the shadow of the Meadowlands complex, where a wrong turn off Route 3 can lead to danger or just surreality, connections are hard to come by, even within the bounds of your own family.
Some of the jumping around in this book makes for the most fun. From revisiting high school from the point of view of the bully's girlfriend as he beats on some sorry kid to meeting a lover on a trip to buy bagels, Reiken gets you with absolutely fascinating magic moments. I highly recommend this book.
Rating: 4
Summary: Teenage Wasteland Rings True
Comment: I grew up in New Jersey just a couple of years behind Reiken's character, who is the same age as my brother, and the detail that's gracefully snuck in between dialogue is dead-on. I read this book when visiting family in NJ. Every now and then I'd ask, Mom, is there a Conservative synagogue on Northlight? the answer would always be yes. Reiken really knows his territory well, and captures the packed-in, yet desolate, feeling the New Jersey suburbs can hold for teenagers. He even understands the appeal Springsteen's working-class lyrics held for middle-class Jewsih suburbanites. I also love the matter-of-fact way ethnicity is treated, which also rings very true to my experience.
This book flies by almost too fast to catch all the confusion, pain and hope in the life of the main character, whose parents' marriage has ended bitterly, and who has a tenuous relationship with the fast yet sensitive girl next door.
It's to Reiken's credit that the characters all maintain some of the mystery of real people-- his mother, for example, has always been mentally unstable-- without resorting to authorial tricks. Reiken follows the dictum "show, don't tell"-- so although the narrator is unusually perceptive, we don't have to read long passages of explanation. Instead, a detailed description of seeing his father with his best friend's mother, at a Bar Mitzvah party, sears itself into the brain as it does the main character's. Reiken doesn't take sides-- everyone in the book has dignity and interest. A stand-out episode was when the boy and friends get lost trying to get home from the Meadowlands. Somehow this episode, which combined bravado, innocence, vulnerability and gratitude, sums up the experience of being a teenager-- going through transitions-- in a transitional time.
Rating: 4
Summary: Lost Legends of New Jersey
Comment: Wonderful! Wonderful!! Wonderful!! I grew up in New Jersey and to see towns, places, streets and other things mentioned within the story brought the whole book and story alive!!! A great book and a wonderful story, Three days and I was done ready it! That says alot for me!! Hope to see many more works from this young man. There is so much to write about the people of this wonderful state. The family life is boundless. Each generation and each family has a story!!!
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Title: The Odd Sea by Frederick Reiken ISBN: 0385333382 Publisher: Delta Pub. Date: 13 July, 1999 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Two Guys from Verona: A Novel of Suburbia by James Kaplan ISBN: 0802136230 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Weird N.J.: Your Travel Guide to New Jersey's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets by Mark Sceurman, Mark Moran ISBN: 076073979X Publisher: Barnes & Noble Publishing Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: New Jersey Curiosities: Quirky Characters, Roadside Oddities & Other Offbeat Stuff by Peter Genovese, Pete Genovese ISBN: 0762725273 Publisher: Globe Pequot Press Pub. Date: March, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Aloft by Chang-Rae Lee ISBN: 1573222631 Publisher: Riverhead Books Pub. Date: 08 March, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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