Eddie and the Cruisers (1980) by P.F. Kluge

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Eddie and The Cruisers (1980)

P.F. Kluge

Berkeley Heights, New Jersey

New Jersey: 7/14

    Editor Susan Straight called Eddie and The Cruisers an "iconic novel of 1950s rock-and-roll," and I was surprised to find out the book itself is hugely out of print (a copy costs 100 at Amazon) AND unavailable to check-out from the Los Angeles Public Library.  It is also unavailable from the library as a Kindle book, forcing me to read Eddie and The Cruisers on the native Libby app on my cell phone.  Reading a 300 page book on my phone is possible but unpleasant because the screen is so small: So much flipping of virtual pages that it becomes a distraction and at times simply unbearable.  There is also the distraction of other things to look at on ones phone, making it hard to focus on reading a book.

  Even so I feel like I'm not being overly negative when I observe that Eddie and The Cruisers, iconic though it might be, is not actually a good book, in the sense of how it is written, the plot or any other themes the author may be trying to express.   I did look up the movie and specifically the sound-track, this being a solid piece of IP even if it isn't a great book.  The band they found to perform the music of Eddie and The Cruisers was an east-coast bar band that essentially functioned as a Bruce Springsteen cover band in fact if not in name.

  That got me thinking about the New Jersey bar-rock scene, which this book somewhat describes.  While at some level I know that artists as disparate as Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi came "from" New Jersey, I didn't know what that meant, and Eddie and The Cruisers gave me some idea of the milieu.  In that regard it's a great pick for the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America, New Jersey chapter, but otherwise not worth the effort to dig up.  I do want to see the movie after reading the book.