21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A fun read, July 17, 2002
First, you can get this book from Kenyon College where the author teaches (Google it up), their college bookstore has reprinted it. The book was interesting to compare to the movie and I like the movie better, although the book is good and I coundn't put it down. Any cult fan of the movie should read it - lots of the movie dialog is directly from the book, but many of the plot details are quite different. Sal Amato and Doc are not so likeable in the book, but the Eddie Wilson of the book and the movie is the same mysterious, driven person. JoaAnn Carlino is definitely an attractive character in the book. I don't want to give too many of the plot differences away, since part of the fun of reading it is to see where it differs from the movie.
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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Find the author, find the paperback edition, May 24, 2000
Narrator Frank Ridgeway's story is that of any American adolescent, one of dreams and heroes slowly replaced by loss and friends. Eddie Wilson is the tragic visionary, the Springsteen + James Dean character that remains to this day the very heart of the American dream. In the bonds between these brothers of purpose, we find ourselves and our national heritage.
Words & music still need each other. Thought & spirit govern our course through life.
The author, the Wordman himself, lives & teaches. His book is available in a special paperback edition with a new post-movie afterword. Find him & you'll find this book. It's well worth the effort.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Eddie and the Cruisers: A Rock 'N' Roll Ghost Story, November 20, 2008
This review is from: Eddie and the Cruisers (Paperback)
It doesn't really matter whether or not you've seen the two films or have heard John Cafferty's superb rendition of "On the Dark Side," on the radio before; neither experience is even close to actually reading the 1980 novel by author P.F. Kluge. The somber source material for the 1983 cult classic film starring Tom Berenger and Michael Pare could be called an American rock `n' roll fable, a murder mystery, a realistic (albeit fictional) memoir, and perhaps most poignantly, a ghost story. Kluge's novel very much defies conventional labels of what genre it should belong to, much like its little-seen hero, Eddie Wilson, vainly searches for a music uniquely his own vision (and ahead of its time) before destiny claims him.
While reading Kluge's articulate prose written in ex-Cruiser Frank Ridgeway's first person point-of-view, I couldn't help but be reminded of Jack Kerouac's stream-of-consciousness "On the Road," narrative, which had a very similar feel to it. Much like the film adaptation (which occurs in 1981 with flashbacks to 1962-1963), Kluge's characters exist in a far more cynical, post-Watergate world than the exuberant, youthful generation of the late 1950's that Eddie Wilson so vibrantly personifies during the dawn of a new age. It seems prophetic that the defiant Eddie won't live to see the dramatic (and few for the better) changes in the lives he so greatly influenced before his apparent suicide in 1958. Even though he has limited `screen time' in the story, his somewhat ominous presence is very much felt throughout the novel.
Unlike actor Michael Pare's version of the character who becomes obsessed with 19th Century French poet Arthur Rimbaud's "A Season in Hell," this Eddie is fascinated by Walt Whitman and his seminal work, "Leaves of Grass." Suffice to say, I can see why changing Whitman to Rimbaud as Eddie's artistic idol makes perfect, logical sense for a movie (not to mention, its soundtrack). Yet, the literary Eddie Wilson has the same ultimate goal as his film counterpart; succinctly, as Pare angrily retorts to Matthew Laurence's Sal Amato, "I want something great .... something nobody's ever done before!" In this version, Eddie takes a month off in the summer of 1958 to work on a mysterious, experimental project with Wendell Newton in a secluded location at Lakehurst. A week after rejoining the Cruisers, a despondent Eddie evidently dies in a car accident going 90 miles an hour across a slick bridge, and the Original Cruisers, as a result, fade into history with him.
Nearly twenty years later, his ex-manager, Earl `Doc' Robbins recruits former Cruiser Frank Ridgeway's reluctant help to track down Eddie's long-lost Lakehurst tapes (assuming they even exist) after the Cruisers' music experiences an unexpected revival with that era's youth. Unlike the film, where the Cruisers are "just some guys from Jersey," as Sal Amato describes them; here, the Parkway Cruisers (yes, the Parkway Cruisers) seem perhaps more reminiscent of a Northeast version of the Eagles than the distinctive, vintage sound John Cafferty's Beaver Brown Band provides on the soundtrack.
As Frank tracks down the surviving members of the band (including Wendell Newton), it appears that someone else is desperate and willing enough to commit multiple murders to get his/her hands on the missing Lakehurst tapes first. In the end, it is left up to Frank to vindicate his old friends and come to terms with regrets over his own conflicted past. Is Eddie really still alive or not? Is he in fact the culprit? Or is it Sal Amato? Or "Doc" Robbins? Or maybe Joann Carlino? Or Kenny "Just Going Through a Phase" Hopkins? Or perhaps someone completely unexpected? Who's to say? As I stated before, Kluge's haunting novel is very much a ghost story (I'm not talking about the supernatural, per se), but the restless specter of Eddie Wilson lurks over each of the surviving Cruisers.
In his foreword, Native American author-poet Sherman Alexie provides an illuminating perspective about why Kluge's novel still matters today. No matter which generation you are from, the mature, nostalgic themes Kluge deftly explores are timeless in reminding readers how fateful decisions in one's youth inevitably have a way of coming full circle often when you least expect them to.
For those in need of an absorbing read, please consider discovering this novel. It's well worth taking a ride with the Cruisers.
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