Alex Austin Novels
Reviews
Critical Acclaim for
The Red Album of Asbury Park Remixed"It is simply an amazing work of fiction…a smart look inside the topsy-turvy world of the rock and roll lifestyle and the futility, hope, danger, love and mystery of survival in general. The Red Album Of Asbury Park is a book you won't be able to put down."-John Pfeiffer, Aquarian Magazine
"An affecting and honest work that rolls out like a pop song and resonates unforgettably, the way a great chorus should."-Alex Green, Caught in the Carousel Magazine
"The inclusion of Springsteen, with his talent and his drive, makes the fate of some of the other characters that much more poignant.... The Vietnam War shadows the young people - damaged veterans and hippies alike - and adds to the relentless tension in the background." -Kelly-Jane Cotter, Entertainment Editor, Asbury Park Press.
"The Red Album of Asbury Park is a very gripping and thoughtful book; it is melancholy and sad at times but also brings a lot of hope with it. You are highly recommended to read it." -Mirza Gazic, Blogcritics
"With its rich mix of New Jersey history, rock 'n' roll roman a clef, and mystery, The Red Album of Asbury Park will beguile, inform, and entertain you." -Jim Testa, JerseyBeat.com
"Strongly evocative of a time and place, of interest especially to those who hail from the "swamps of Jersey" but also to anyone who loves rock 'n' roll. Good book!"-Dave Williams, Journalist, former Books Editor, Asbury Park Press
"A 10 out of 10!" -Frank Gogol, Editor-in-Chief, The Outlook, Monmouth University
"Asbury Park, ville cotière dans New Jersey, a toujours inspiré le Boss, mais aussi l'écrivain Alex Austin….A travers le rocker en herbe Sam Nesbitt, l'auteur offre une vision à la fois héro?que et charnelle de l'époque."[... the author offers a vision of an era both heroic and carnal.]- Talia
Soghomonian, Paris Metro"It might be the perfect book to read on the beach in Asbury Park this summer."-Joe Palazzolo, Jerseysmarts.com
Critics on The Perfume Factory
I have just finished reading a great little novel, The Perfume Factory by Alex Austin. It is a dark and gritty coming-of-age story set in the 60's. . . . His young characters are fascinating. Their naïve invincibility, their teenage wants and fears bring them to life." - Laura Rae Amos, Blogcritics
"This is the working-class accurately portrayed in the conflict between an abusive father and his rebellious son. This is a powerful story, well told." -Allen Caruba, Bookviews
"Alex Austin can tell a story! His sensual, confused, and passionate teen-age characters kept me enthralled from start to finish. I can unabashedly recommend this book to anyone who has ever been 17" --Tom Waldman, author of We All Want to Change the World: Rock and Politics from Elvis to Eminem
First-time novelist Austin draws a sharp, affecting portrait of wrong-side-of-the-tracks hopelessness, Jersey style. He captures perfectly the tone of teenage life, the aimlessness of finding something to do and the hesitant, meandering conversations of a budding romance. Through Sam's warring impulses, the author also probes the serious moral conundrums of youth, as he tries to break free of his self-absorption, engage with the world and solidify his character against the pressures of external circumstances." -Kirkus Discoveries Named 2005 Kirkus Recommended !
"This coming-of-age novel, set at the northern tip of the Jersey shore in the blue-collar wastelands of Raritan Bay, will captivate you from start to finish. It's Catcher In The Rye as re-imagined by Bruce Springsteen. . . . I couldn't put this down." -Jim Testa, Jersey Beat
"Sam is an effective, against-the-grain main character. Huck Finn might come to mind, and rightly so: Austin's authoring skills and ear for human rhythms of speech elevate The Perfume Factory to a lofty level of achievement indeed." -Geoff Rotuno, The Boox Review
The
Boardwalk
"The following morning, I sat on the back of a bench on the boardwalk in Asbury Park alternately drinking black coffee and Snappy Tom. I watched the Atlantic smash the Fourth Avenue jetty, sending saliva-colored plumes twenty feet above the black rocks. Once in awhile, a breeze would carry a few cool droplets to my face, but mostly I had to rely on the spiced juice to devour my hangover. I had managed not to look at my face, my fingertips on my cheek were telling me plenty. I closed my eyes and the pale sun burned red on my eyelids. Behind me, music dripped from concession stand speakers— music for paraded elephants and women balanced on horses’ spines. I slept until a hacking shadow woke me, a green gob glowing at my feet. I moved on with the gang of old men walking the chevroned planks, mumbling of their dreams and numbly gazing at the ocean as it chewed the shore. A couple of stray dogs chased seagulls, licked at wrappers and pissed on the guardrail. Under storm-cloud Afros, two black kids raced by on bicycles, legs pumping furiously, jackets spread out like wings, lifting off as they approached the Convention
Hall and soaring over the roof."
The Casino
"I pushed myself off the bench and started walking. I looked up at the Casino, the letters of the word were split into frames: CA/SI/NO. Above the name and a row of windows were green seahorses and above them the green roof: a crown anchored by statues of Atlas, condemned by Zeus to hold up the world forever. Inside the Casino, the carousel revolved as fast as an old 78. It was all show, for any child that mounted would be hurled into the sea. I walked around the carousel several times, as if I might see more, and then laughed aloud at my stupidity. Before the spinning figures made me sick, I hurried out of the carousel room and into the main hall of the Casino, where there was an exhibit of World War II photographs. Soldiers hunkered down. Waves broke over the bows of warships. Concentration camps with bodies heaped up like piles of tires at a junkyard. This was an exhibit they would only show in winter. Who could eat cotton candy and look at this?
Wesley Lake
"The sun was a red rind in the west as I guided Julie onto the swan. I stepped into my body and she stepped into hers. What remained of time fled like dark from light, as I held her hand and the swan glided from the dock along the invisible track. All the Beatles songs rolled into one played on Wesley Lake. I grew fat and stupid on song. She leaned against me, real. I glanced from her face to the Ferris wheel traveling across the Palace roof, its lights flickering on the deep green water. A rectangle floated before us, dangling along the swan’s side. A postcardof Asbury Park, I thought,reaching over the swan to save it. My hand sunk into the warm stream that swept the postcard into my hand. As I lifted the postcard, I saw the words as the paper came apart, melting through my fingers."
A Jetty
"I went in at the jetty, slowly walking on the decline of sand, broken seashells and pebbles, taking the backwash at my thighs and belly, until mostly numb, I dove under the broken wave. The cold stunned me, woke me. I swam hard against the swarm of bubbles, and downward into darker blue, pulling myself to the bottom where I skimmed against the white grainy bottom, a sand shark in my head. Holding my breath. Holding my breath. Holding my breath. Above me a wave fell, its concussion booming, its weight on me for a second like another body pressed against mine.Before me, sand swirled and rose in puffs of smoke. I pushed through dancing kelp and met the doubled eyes of a fluke embedded on the seabed like a fossil. I swallowed back the used air in my throat, swam another twenty feet and released. I broke the surface into the face of a wave and had to turn my head as I blew out the air, holding for another second as the wave passed. I sucked in air, treading water and staring into the sun, forgetting everything. My breath back, I swam parallel to the jetty until I had reached the end. I turned north and started slowly swimming toward the next jetty. It had been years since I had swum at distance, so that halfway there my shoulders ached and I turned back to shore. On the following day, I swam to the end of the second jetty, crawling across the half-submerged boulders until I nested in a chimney in the rocks, resting while the waves roared and smashed above me, tendrils of water poking me, rock crabs scuttling in and out of crevices."
Podcast with AP MusiciansI'm recording a podcast of The Red Album of Asbury Park Remixed for Podiobooks. The podcast will include songs from many Asbury Park/Jersey musicians, including Keith Kenny, David Trotta, Coleman Brice, Justina, Lisa Bianco, Anna Jorosz, Arlan Feiles, Clare Means, Vinny Rugnetta and James McCaffrey. If you want a taste, see Podcasts Chapters 1, 2, 3 below.
Guest on Overnight Sensations Radio Show
On Friday, August 6, I’m going to be a guest on Geoffrey Pape's WRSU-FM’s Overnight Sensations Show (10-12 pm). The show will play samples from the podcast, including songs (see above).
Purchasing
The Red Album of Asbury Park Remixed is sold online and at bookstores. Purchase online at
In New Jersey, stores carrying The Red Album include The Galleria on the Boardwalk in Asbury Park, River Road Books on 759 River Road, Fair Haven, Comfort Zone on Main St., Ocean Grove, and Sun Rose Words and Music, 756 Asbury Ave.,
Ocean CityInterviews
The Following is an excerpt from a month-long interview on Librarything's Le Salon Litteraire du Peuple pour le Peuple. Le Salon, a readers' group led by EnriqueFreeque. Members asked questions regarding the novel, and I did my best to answer. You can read the entire interview on Librarything Additional interviews are at Booktunes and Wordpress
Le Salon: There's a famous photo of the young Frank Sinatra, before he's anybody, standing alongside the Hudson in Hoboken, N.J., staring fixedly toward New York City's skyscraper skyline. New Jersey, in its relative destitution and overshadowedness, finds itself on the wrong side of the tracks; on the wrong side of the river. And yet Sinatra originated there. Springsteen. And in your book, Sam, the hopeful lead guitarist of Pan.
Did you choose Asbury, New Jersey, as your novel's setting, in order to enhance that spirit of under-doggedness and beating-the-odds determination so prevalent in Sam, your persevering protagonist, or do you also maybe have some personal connections to the area? I guess I'm asking, roundabout: Did you have to research Asbury, New Jersey, much, or did you perhaps grow up yourself on the wrong side of the tracks; on the "wrong side" of the river?
Austin: The Red Album is the sequel to The Perfume Factory, in which Sam obtains his first guitar from the local garbage dump. While at the dump, he stands on a trash heap and stares fixedly across the bay to the home of the middle-class girl he's in love with. That scene is analogous with the Sinatra photo. Not much happened with the guitar in the first novel, but I put it there to offer hope of escape from Sam's grim existence in a dead-end town. Asbury was more complicated.
I grew up in Union Beach, New Jersey, a small bay town 25 miles north of Asbury Park, so I knew Asbury from holidays and the like. In the late 60s, my family moved to Asbury (my father had been hired as the custodian of a synagogue, with free rent on an adjacent house tossed in) and remained there for almost 20 years. I lived in Asbury for two years before heading out to California. So there is a strong personal connection.
Even back then, Asbury was fading as a top resort. The summer crowds were thinning, its retail center was losing business to the malls and there was a lot of racial tension. I was aware of all that but not much concerned. Inspired by the Beatles and other bands, I had decided I was going to be a rock musician, and Asbury seemed like the right place to reach that goal. In the summer, the Jersey Shore had always been a great venue for bands from North Jersey and New York. But in the fall when the tourists left, the bands went north, and the clubs pulled in their free peanuts and turned on their TVs.
In the late 60s that started changing. It seemed as if every other teen from the area had musical ambitions. Everyone was getting in a band and there were plenty of venues. So the Asbury scene was ideal for someone who wanted to be a rock musician-if that person had talent. Unfortunately, I had no talent. I was a mediocre guitarist and had little range as a vocalist. I could sing Taxman and Light My Fire fairly well, and that was about it.
But I gave it my best shot anyway, formed a band, played a couple of dives and struck a few poses. If I had not gone to California, I probably would have continued doing that for several years, and eventually given up. But the impression Asbury had on me was indelible, and it was not that of a city in ruin, but a city giving birth to a new generation of music.
For many years I wanted to write a novel set in Asbury, but I couldn't get a handle on how to approach it. In the meantime, Springsteen had come on the national scene, which put Asbury on the map, but also paralleled the city's downward spiral. I had gone back many times in the 70s and each time the city seemed to shrink and darken. I went back in the winter of 1986, when my mother was living on the eighth floor of a rent-controlled high-rise in Asbury. Her living room window offered a panoramic view of the beachfront, which I hadn't seen for several years. When I casually looked out the window, my initial thought was "This had to be a bomb." Almost the entire beachfront had been flattened, and what still stood was charred and mangled. It was heartbreaking, and that view stuck with me.
As I wrote The Red Album, I projected a certain amount of Asbury's future onto the past. Sam's personal struggle-poverty, drugs, crime, racial tensions-is also Asbury's struggle. All this does, of course, highlight Sam's determination to set things right with his music.
A Podcast Sample of The Red Album of Asbury Park Remixed By
Alex AustinChapter 1
Music by Arlan FeilesMusic by Justina
Music by Coleman Brice
Music by The Backbeat
Music by Cosmic Juggernaut
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