Everyday People: Profiles from the Garden State (Paperback)

~ (Author) "In a nagging cold rain that might well have reminded them of Eastern Europe, two Bosnian refugees stared at the door of their new home,..." (more)
Key Phrases: town attorney, New York, Glen Ridge, Hudson Reporter Associates (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

This text contains stories about inhabitants of New Jersey from all walks of life, from minister to prostitute, from jail warden to undercover cop. The stories take the reader to the funeral of an AIDS activist, the workshop of a violin maker, and the rooftop "office" of a chimney sweep.

From the Back Cover

You don't have to live in New Jersey to recognize the people in Sullivan's stories. They are the librarians and tax assessors, attorneys and hot-dog vendors, poets and politicians that make every American town special.

In this time of ever-shorter news stories telling us everything that's wrong with the world, it's a nice change of pace to read about someone like Felix Addeo, who takes time out of his busy schedule to teach middle school kids what it's like to be an accountant. Or biomedical engineer Lois Ross, who twice a year leads a group of volunteers to clean up a local pond. Through richly detailed stories-a kind of writing that has all but disappeared from our local newspapers-about small-town people in extraordinary situations, Sullivan depicts the characters that enliven life in the Garden State.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press (July 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813529506
• ISBN-13: 978-0813529509
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,619,701 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Breath of Fresh Air!, July 30, 2002

By	"gongie82" (Hoboken, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is long overdue. I picked up Al's book almost a year ago at a local book sale. I'm not a big reader, but having met Al in person led me to buy the book. I began skimming the book later on that night. Eventually, I stopped skimming and began reading. The profiles in this book are interesting. Yes, these are 'everyday people', but Al's insightful writing sheds electricity onto their lives. It was really like a breath of fresh air to read about the lives ordinary people lead. It's not everyday, in this fast-paced world of ours, when you take the time out to sit down and learn about the strangers who come and go. I highly recommend this pleasurable read.

5.0 out of 5 stars Looking for real people, November 24, 2002

By	alfred sullivan (hoboken, NJ United States) - See all my reviews

I am the author of this book
When I put together the pieces for this book, I wanted to share with readers the sight and sounds of those people I interviewed. Each person, each story is special to me because they seem to capture the person as I felt. Each person I talked to seemed to want to share their secret lives with me. It was fun.

5.0 out of 5 stars Sullivan: gritty realism, a pure reading pleasure, November 22, 2001

By	Anthony R. Buccino (Nutley, NJ United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If you ever met Al Sullivan, the last thing you'd do is picture him as a dashing young soldier long ago at the height of the Vietnam war - much less baby sitting a bunch of freaky rockers outside his helicopter at a place called Woodstock. Yet, that's one of the duties he 'volunteered' for.

In his essay "By The Time I Got To Woodstock" Sullivan briefly notes his 1st visit to the upstate refuge - and his overwhelming fear of helicopters. It is one of the rare times in Everyday People that he uses "I". It's to be forgiven him because he immediately uses his modern day visit to Woodstock as a newspeg to compare that town with Secaucus - his current tour of duty.

Sullivan worked for me for a few months in 96-97, and though the months were few, the impact has been long-lasting. He covered the mundane meetings, sure, but there was always something else lurking behind the touseld hair and the distant stare. He had the ragtag Tandy laptop blinking on one desk, the company terminal blinking there, a notepad in front of him - all while he was on the phone talking to another source. Sullivan was always on the go, always three steps ahead of the sunshine, so to speak. It is a pleasure to read him again.

It was there, in those other stories that Al set himself apart. If he workd for me now, he'd be a 'special writer' - that's someone who does his beat, and also turns in outstanding stories from left field, Clark's Pond, the emergency room and just about anywhere else fate takes him.

"Down and Out in Hoboken" relays the chance meeting with a panhandler at St. Mary's Hospital. The panhandler - whose name Sullivan never learns - says "People give me money to make me go away..." And in just a couple hundred words, you learn an awful lot about the panhandler - and the skill of Sullivan's perception of people. That's what makes Everyday People in its gritty realism a pure reading pleasure.

Perhaps the editors of Everyday People could have selected a few longer profiles, but as Sullivan notes in his Preface, "the word count has always been my curse," and I'll vouch for his observation here, "as it is for all prolific journalists," and again I agree. While we await the next volume, dig in here, and meet some interesting everyday people.