Customer Reviews

The Red Album of Asbury Park

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Red Album of Asbury Park is definitely, by far, one of the best books I have read recently. There is no doubt about that. On the surface, The Red Album of Asbury Park doesn't appear to be anything exciting - I wasn't a fan of the cover (although "Never judge a book by the cover" rings very true here) and the synopsis did not pull me in. The cover just does not do this magical and engaging story justice. I gave it a try, though, and - wow. I am speechless. It's going to be hard writing a review - because how do you explain something so wonderful?

Sam has just returned from his stint in the military and on the way to his mother's new home, he meets a free (although heavily damaged) soul named Jillian. Instantly drawn to her, and their mutual respect for music -he finds himself torn between two women, one representing the past and one who represents everything that could be. Meanwhile- Sam wants nothing more than to make it big in the music industry, although the town is small and the stakes are high. Sam is full of soul and passion, qualities that are very admirable in a character. Sam is a likable and truly realistic character that will you cheering for him from start to finish.

Austin does a wonderful, amazing, absolutely phenomenal job at painting a picture. Words are carefully chosen and sentences carefully structured but flow easily as if writing is the most natural thing in the world. Because I was born in the 80's, I was not fortunate enough to belong to the lifestyle of bell bottoms, hippies, and musicians following the Beatles. After reading Austin's novel, I feel like I truly lived there. Like maybe - just maybe - I can now picture what life was like back in the 60s. With real life situations (JFK's & Martin Luther King's assassinations) mentioned in the time line of the plot, the book felt real to me. It gave me that sense of wonder, as if the book may possibly be based on true events. (I admit it, I looked up the band name "Pan" without much luck.)

While I read The Red Album of Asbury Park, I kept thinking what a fabulous movie this would make and am hoping that someday Alex Austin receives such recognition that this would become an easy possibility. For anyone who loves music and would love to read something new, I definitely recommend The Red Album of Asbury Park. Place it on your "To-Read" list as it's a worthy read.

Having been born and raised in New Jersey, I'm often asked by non-Jersians, "What was it like?" I usually get odd stares when I respond with, "Like the circus left town."

There is a sadness to New Jersey. If you've lived there you know what I'm talking about. It's hard to see past the state borders. Things outside of New Jersey just don't seem possible. Maybe that is why, too often, people never leave New Jersey. They usually wind up just staying put, residing two towns over from where they grew up, still hanging out with the same high school friends. As they get older, their worldview may expand, but often it's too late. New Jersey has them. To leave it all behind would be to rip themselves from the womb. I was lucky enough to leave when I was 18. Looking back on those that didn't, I realized that was the sadness of New Jersey: being trapped in place that never offered much promise to begin with. Seeing it now, it always feels like the circus just left town, a pale memory of it drifting down the turnpike.

That sense of sadness is all over Alex Austin's The Red Album of Asbury Park. It is in the setting: Springsteen-land in the late 1960s, a once thriving seaside getaway, now a rundown hulk of decaying buildings, degenerates, dive bars, thieves, decrepit amusements, gangsters, and junkies. (Go there now and you'll see not much has changed, except the amusements are gone). It is also in the main character. Vet Sam Nesbitt has just come back from Vietnam. He's one of the lucky ones. The horrors of war have given him a worldview that goes beyond Ocean Avenue. He wants out. He wants to make something of himself, to escape the ghosts of days past, and not become another lost cause walking the streets of Asbury Park. That's more than once can say of his binge-drinking mother, his deceased father (who had his own secrets), and his unmotivated brother (or perhaps just motivated in the wrong directions).

Nesbitt's hope is music. He has the goods as a guitar player and harbors dreams of that hit album that will get him the hell out of New Jersey. Except the music is too much of an escape. It is a pipe dream that bursts whenever confronted by all the obstacles surrounding Sam. Austin never once over-glorifies Sam's pursuit of musical stardom. Instead, as any musician would attest, Sam's efforts become an endless series of letdowns -- bad gigs, continuous debt, medical mishaps, band breakups, missed opportunities --that far outweigh those nights where everything goes right.

Most importantly, Austin nails New Jersey. Sam's dreams are dashed not because he can't cut it as a musician -- if anyone deserves to make it, he does -- but because he runs face first into those obstacles each time. Sam has his dreams, but no actual hope. The dreams are merely a way to escape what ultimately is the grim reality facing him: a dead-end town with too many obstacles and not enough opportunity.

Often, novels about musicians fall apart when it comes to what should be the easiest part: the music. Writers tend to make the mistake of focusing too much on the music and not enough on the life of the musicians. It gives a story too much hokiness, especially when written by a non-musician. Too much focus on the flow of songs and how adeptly the characters are playing them and not enough focus on what that music means to the musicians in question. Austin takes a different tact. Sam's escape into music (and his pursuit of being rock star) is important, but rendered in broad strokes rather than specifics. It is not what makes the character live and breathe in the reader's mind. He wants to be big -- Pete Townshend big -- but he has to survive Asbury Park first. Throughout the novel, no matter how hard Sam pushes towards the dream, his family, or the local gangsters, or the women who don't want him as much as he wants them, pull the bottom out from under him, dropping him to the pavement. Each time he dusts himself off and jumps back into the fray. The circus had left Asbury Park years ago and Sam's struggle to resurrect his musical dreams make him sad, but also heroic. He's the only guy in town who hasn't given up even if he is the only one who knows it's a worthless to even try.

If that's not a novel about New Jersey, I don't know what is. In The Red Album of Asbury Park, Alex Austin has crafted a sad postcard from the Garden State, but one worth reading.

The Red Album of Asbury Park captures the late 60's of Asbury, New Jersey, and its music scene. This was a time when the town was resonating with a "rock and roll" energy (the same time that then-unknown/up-and-coming musicians like The Boss were just getting started). There is a nice, melancholy mood and tension throughout the book, which features a style of prose writing that's original and smooth-flowing. The characters were introduced, and/or entered the scene(s) very naturally and at a good pace as well. I found the lead character, the 22-year-old musician Sam Nesbitt, to be introspective, pensive, and philosophical (with a snarky sense of humor at points - this conversation is an example):

---

"Hey, rob a liquor store on a Friday night. Do what you have to do to get the money," I said, mindlessly repeating Sal's advice.
"Sam," said Julie, slapping me on the arm.
"What? I didn't say a bank."
"You're a role model."
No, Julie, no role model, I insisted.

(along with this narrative - the introspective/philosophical aspect):

Still, I could not sleep. At 3 a.m., I would sit up in bed with my guitar in my lap, picking out fragments of songs that remained just beyond reach. I was looking for the key, the secret elixir that would transform the sincere and competent into anthems of love, heartache and revolution.

---

There are many details the author did not overlook. Some of the lines that I thought were very descriptive/evocative:

---

Mannequins posed in the darkness behind the plateglass windows, elegant in their winter clothes, their features only visible when they seemed to turn their heads to the lights of a passing car, and unoffended at the inattention.

I never told her to stay away; she read it in my eyes, that resentment that I hardly admitted to myself: that her presence took me away from the band, the music, the audience.

"Peace," said Jillian, rising.
"Peace," said Julie.
We both stared after Jillian as she picked up her order and danced out the door. A guy walked into the restaurant carrying a girl, her legs wrapped around his waist from the front and laughing like there was no tomorrow. As Janis Joplin said, "It's all one day."

---

I thought the dialogs were tight/sharp (nothing worse than superfluous dialog!!) - in the sense that the sometimes *seemingly* meandering conversations _are_ that way for a reason (to this reader, at least) - they capture the ambiguity and tension(s) of a new romance/the mood of the interactions in the (potential) pre-relationship stage.

And always, the lead character's drive/dream of becoming a famous rock star (and the story takes place in New Jersey; NJ natives include Bruce Springsteen, Frank Sinatra, Bon Jovi, Lauryn Hill, Dionne Warwick - talk about pressure).........hangs over him, doggedly. One can't help but feel for the character, in the sense of his despondency/anxiety about being a struggling, young musician (something every artist can relate to!) in the city. But despite the harshness of reality, it doesn't all end in morose catastrophe. I especially liked a certain caption on pg-12. It's sort of a golden thread that runs through the book - which was nice, I don't always enjoy leaving a (humanistic) book on a depressing note!

Just takes that first chapter to pull you into this fast moving story!
Can you put the book down(?)...I think not!!!!!
Great story for a historic setting in this rapidly changing Jersey shore town!
Enjoy!