Customer Reviews

Eddie and the Cruisers

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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.

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.

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.

I say that with exception of the music from the movie (John Cafferty and the Beaver Band did an exceptional job). First let me say that on the basis of plot, the book is superior to the movie. There was an attempt to tie in some of the back plot in the second movie... Where the novel really shines is in the deep characterization of the secondary characters... Wendell's characer was so much more instrumental in the novel, as the only musician who was in on Eddie's secret experiment at Lakehurst. Since the novel is told in the first person, Frank Ridgeway comes alive... If you can get ahold of this book, it will be worth whatever you have to go through to get it...

Forget the Michael Pare films; in this book, P.F. Kluge distills every cool thing about rock and roll into a gripping musical detective story that manages to be both vividly set in a particular time and place (New Jersey in the early 60's) AND universal. Anyone who ever wanted to be Elvis or Springsteen or Cobain will identify with both visionary Eddie Wilson and narrator Frank Ridgeway. Inexplicably out of print, this book is worth the search and expense to find.

Eddie and The Cruisers, the movie has been on TV recently and it's a movie I usually watch, and I decided I wanted to read the book to see how it compares to the movie. Did the screenwriters just adapt what was in the book? Or was the book a starting point for them? And, of course, it adds to the eternal debate which is better, the book or the movie? This is a review of P.F. Kluge's Eddie and The Cruisers (until the last paragraph).

Frank Ridgeway is a high school English teacher who is getting a divorce and pretty much doesn't like the students he teaches or his life. In his past he was a guitar player and lyricist for the 1958 era band Eddie and the Parkway Cruisers, who`s lead singer, Eddie Wilson, died mysteriously. After one of Frank's classes he's contacted by a reporter, Elliott Mannheim, who is doing a retrospective story on The Cruisers because their song "Far Away Woman" has been getting some airplay, and there`s a rumor of undiscovered recordings Eddie made right before he died. After the interview with Mannheim, Frank is contacted by Doc Robinson, the former manager of The Cruisers who was somewhat of schemer/scammer but now is making a living as a DJ at a college radio station. Doc tells Frank there may be tapes, he doesn't know but he started the rumor there were to flush them out if there were any tapes. And this is where the plot starts to get a little implausible to me. Doc tells Frank he needs to seek out all the old Cruisers and see if they know or have the tapes. Why doesn't Doc do this himself? Frank agrees to do this at the very least to make peace with his past.

As Frank visits all the old Cruisers, Salvatore "Sally" Amato, Kenny Hopkins, now a Reverend, Wendell Newton, and finally Joann Carlito, he starts hearing how Eddie, the month before he died rented a Quonset hut in Lakehurst New Jersey ostensibly to record music that would bring together black and white music. Wendell, who is in a mental institution swears that Eddie brought together `the kings" of black and white music and they had jam sessions. But the characters and their motives seem forced like actors trying to make an unwieldy script work. Frank and all the other Cruisers suspect the reporter of trying to steal the tapes (if they exist) with no real evidence or actions by the reporter to suspect him of that.

This is where I find more implausibility's. The Parkway Cruisers are described as a small local N.J. band that released one album and they're playing small bars and Eddie is able to summons rock legends "the kings" of music? Eddie for no stated reason abandons The Cruisers, he doesn't take any of them to the jam session except Wendell. As in the movie Eddie considers Frank important to the band because he's "The Wordman," and Eddie also tells everyone it's `words and music" that make the band. If words and music were so important to Eddie and Frank was the "Wordman," why didn't Eddie take Frank to Lakehurst?

Another shortcoming of the novel is that Kluge introduces characters that go nowhere, and don't really add anything to the understanding of Eddie or the music, such as Eddie's wife and parents. The characters of the reporter Elliott Mannheim and his girlfriend appear in the beginning, disappear, only to reappear at the end. Joann Carlito appears as an after thought, her position is never really delineated, she's "Eddie's girl" other than that we don't know if she's in the band and a back up singer, like in the movie, or someone just hanging out with Eddie and the how and why of that aren't explained too much. As the relationship with Eddie's wife isn't explained.

The world that Kluge is familiar with is what stands out. He knows schools and the academic life. The scenes at Frank's prep school ring the truest, the descriptions and the motivations of the kids at school, even the Toby Tyler scene works much better in the book and isn't as awkward as it is in the movie. What Kluge doesn't know or isn't able to render is a feeling for Eddie and The Cruisers or their music.

There's a lot of ambivalence in the characters starting with Eddie, there's not much of a mystery if Eddie is dead or how he died. The Lakehurst tapes, did Eddie make any tapes or not? In the beginning Doc admits he put out the rumor of there being tapes but no one in the story has any idea if there are any tapes or if they should be looking for them? I think Kluge wasn't clear whether this was supposed to be a detective story, or a murder mystery, there's a double murder towards the end but it's cleared up within a half a page, or if Kluge was trying for something else all together.

Movie vs. Book - By the above review you can tell the screenwriters of "Eddie and the Cruisers" stripped the story down to its skeleton and added a more plausible story based on the elements of the novel. I think, in this case, the movie is a little better than the book.

Book vs. movie is one of those debates that almost always falls in favor of the book. This is one of the few times I would go the other way. The major plot differences seemed better the way the movie portrayed them. (And believe me, it is as if there was a general "story" that was given two radically different tellings)

The differences were quite striking, to say the least. While I appreciate that the novel delved into personalities and back-story a little more, I actually found that I liked the "story" of the movie better. While I did enjoy the book, I found it a disappointment by comparison and feel that there was too much unexplored area based on the fact that it was 100% written for Frank's point of view.

I think all fans of the movie should read the book to experience where the original story was intended to go, because JoAnn might be the only character that seems relatively unchanged.

The film Eddie and the Cruisers was a box-office bomb when it was released in 1983. But the film found an audience on cable and it is now a cult classic, largely due to the great soundtrack by John Cafferty. I enjoyed the film, so I jumped at the chance to read the 1980 P.F. Kluge novel that serves as the basis for the film.

The book is about a New Jersey rock band named Eddie and the Cruisers. The band made only one album before their leader - Eddie Wilson - disappeared under mysterious circumstances in 1958. Shortly before disappearing, Eddie recorded a second album but the tapes for that album vanished.

Twenty years later, Eddie's music enjoys a revival. The band's guitar player and lyricist, Frank Ridgeway, works as a New Jersey English teacher. When Eddie's music catches on, fortune hunters come searching for the lost tapes. Frank also begins to experience a mid-life crisis as he sorts out his past.

There is much to like in the book. Kluge paints a vivid picture of 1950s New Jersey. Frank Ridgeway and Doc (the Cruisers' former manager) are well drawn, interesting characters. Middle-aged readers will relate to Frank's struggles with the passing of his youth.

Kluge's plot is a mixed bag. The novel is a combination of a murder mystery and a rock n' roll memoir. Frank's angst gives the book a sad tone. Kluge tried to cram too much into 240 pages and - as a result - he didn't know how to tie the book together at the end.

If you see the movie first, it colors your perceptions of the book. Both film and book are good, but they are very different. Taken on its own merits, the book is good - but not great.

The Eddie&the Cruisers and its sequel were movies I enjoy to death. They're rock-n-roll fantasies.

The novel, however, was darker and more cynical than the movies. Some of the characters were more tragic and Eddie was even larger than life than he was in the movies. However, he was also less successful in reaching his dreams...and his death is less ambiguous.

I love this novel.

It's almost impossible to talk about this book without also talking about the movie. After all, the book was all but out of print (sold only at the university bookstore on the campus where author P.F. Kluge teaches) for many years, whereas the movie was a ubiquitous presence on pay cable stations everywhere. The movie Eddie and the Cruisers is a part of our collective cultural consciousness in a way that the book never was. So let's talk about the movie first.

In the forward by Sherman Alexie, new to this edition, he writes that the book is darker than the movie. This is sort of true. The movie WAS dark, after all. It just rushed some of the scenes so that the darkness didn't have a chance to really sink in with the audience. There's nothing believable in the book that is especially dark that isn't also in the movie.

As other reviewers have noted, most characters are different in the movie than they are in the book, although it makes little to no difference in how the story plays out. Joann, for one, is improved in the movie. In the book she's just a girlfriend, a hanger-on, whereas in the movie she is a backup singer - part of the group, with a bona fide reason for being there.

Alexie, in his forward, also writes that the book is clearly the work of a young, raw/inexperienced writer, and this is the basis for my problems with the book. Kluge as a young writer exhibited an extreme fondness for the exclamation point and the interrobang, such that his characters seem to be constantly shrieking and screeching out their lines (!!?!). Story threads are begun only to be abandoned. Questions raised that are never answered. Kluge wrote his almost 40-year-old characters as slower, gray-haired versions of themselves at 20 (17 in the case of the protagonist). They weren't real people who grew and changed over time. Even the old married couples interact with each other like inexperienced 20 year-olds. The best scene in the book is the one that takes place at Frank Ridgeway's old college, which should come as no surprise, as it's also one of the best sequences in the movie.

Read this book only if you're so enamored with the movie that you can't get enough of Eddie and his Cruisers, but be warned that you'll leave a little unsatisfied.