We enjoyed The Red Album of Asbury Park
so much that we wanted to ask its author Alex
Austin a bit about how the book came together,
especially the memories of Asbury Park in
the late Sixties.
Q:
You're a Californian but you've written two
novels about New Jersey. Did you grow up here?
What's the attraction of the East Coast? Plenty
of noir novels have been written about L.A.
A: I was born in Newark and grew up in Union
Beach, a small town on the Raritan Bay. In
the late 60s, my family moved to Asbury Park
and I spent a couple of years there. In one
of George Eliot’s novels, she writes
about the indelibility of the experiences
of youth. She compares youth to early morning,
when everything is clean, clear and fresh.
Youthful experiences are etched on a pristine
slate, and are forever more vivid, more real,
than all that follows. When I wrote The Perfume
Factory, a coming-of-age novel, I drew on
those experiences I had growing up New Jersey,
which were still fresh to me and inextricably
linked to Jersey.
The Red Album of Asbury Park is a little different.
I’m a big fan of noir, and I’ve
written several noirish screenplays and plays
set in Los Angeles. But I didn’t initially
plan to do that with the Asbury novel. I lived
in Asbury during the years that Springsteen
was getting started. The first time I saw
him play, I came away convinced that this
guy was going to make it. But at that time,
there were many highly talented musicians
and bands in the area. For several reasons,
Asbury was losing its drawing power as a resort
and maybe all these venues (bars, clubs, hotels,
etc.) needed something new to attract crowds,
but the town seemed to be just bursting with
rock and roll. I left for California when
all this was really starting to build, but
I took with me this certainty that something
special was going on in that town. When I
got to Los Angeles, I went to plenty of clubs
and heard hundreds of bands, but I thought
to myself, Jesus Christ, there’s nothing
here that matches Asbury (admittedly, New
Jersey transplants say pretty much the same
thing about pizza and subs). I also read every
issue of Rolling Stone expecting to see that
Bruce had been signed and his first album
released, but this would not happen for so
long that I half lost faith. When Springsteen
eventually did break out, with his songs so
attached to the area, it reinforced my belief
that something special had been going on in
Asbury, and I wanted to capture that in a
story. So an Asbury novel had been on my mind
and in the planning for a long time. The noir
aspect came in because I wanted to foreshadow
Asbury’s bleak future. The timeline
of the story precluded going into that future.
Q: How much research went into The Red Album?
You seem to really capture the Asbury Park
of the late 60's. How many of the clubs and
bars that you mention really existed?
A: I spent a lot of time researching Asbury’s
history, so much so that at one point I considered
using a pseudonym for the town, so that I
wouldn’t have to worry about being so
factually accurate. But I decided I would
lose more that I’d gain. I did fictionalize
a few clubs, but The Student Prince was a
real bar down on Kingsley. The Upstage was
a club (no alcohol) on Cookman that played
a big part in the Asbury music scene. The
Wonder Bar still exists and from what I hear
is thriving.
Q: In the story, an Assemblyman named Gary
Ritamoon proposes a bill to legalize gambling
in Asbury Park. Was that based on fact?
A: Gary Ritamoon didn’t exist, but from
the late 60s on there was discussion and legislative
movement on legalizing gambling in New Jersey.
Asbury Park and Atlantic City were the focus.
There was actually a plan to build a casino
in the Berkeley Carteret, and Johnny Cash
was one of the principals in the project,
but it fell through. There was a lot of resistance
by civic and religious groups to casino gambling
in Monmouth County.
Q:
There's a cryptic paragraph at the bottom
of page 241 where Sam passes another unnamed
musician at a club. Is that a guest appearance
by a certain born-to-run Jersey artist?
A: Yes. How to handle Springsteen was a problem
for me. He was the elephant in the room. How
could I ignore him? But if I brought him (by
name) into the story to any degree, he might
upset the tone and balance of the novel—and
it probably would seem gimmicky. So he actually
has a couple of fleeting anonymous appearances.
Q: I won't give away the plot but there's
a ton of coincidences that eventually tie
nearly every character together in some way.
It reminds me a lot of the novels of Elmore
Leonard or Robert Parker ... it's as if there's
a certain inevitability in the universe that
makes us all part of the same story. Is that
a precept that you use when you're constructing
a novel? There's a definite element of mystery
in the book -- do you plot everything out
first, and connect all the dots first and
then fill in the details, or did the story
develop organically?
A: Yeah, I wanted everything linked, fated
and inescapable. I find that I go for this
in most of the things I write. The Red Album
is not a mystery but it contains a mystery.
As I mentioned, I wanted to get at Asbury’s
future without bringing the story into the
future, and the noir and mystery elements
let me do this. I do plot the story out, but
as I write things happen that usually require
tearing up the plot. The book did not easily
unfold.
Q: I assume you're working on the next novel.
Are you going back to New Jersey again or
taking the story somewhere else?
A: I’ve spent the last few weeks slightly
revising The Red Album. Switching a couple
of chapters around and cutting a couple of
things that I thought interfered with the
novel’s momentum. Perhaps I’ll
look back and see that the things bothering
me are insignificant, but right now they ruin
my sleep. So in a couple of months there will
be a somewhat different version of the novel
available. The next novel won’t be substantially
set in New Jersey. It’s time to move
on.
The Red Album of Asbury Park
is available at virtualbookworm.com,
amazon.com, and other online booksellers.
Alex Austin can be reached at alaust70@aol.com
Click here to
read our review of The Red Album of Asbury
Park
