Eddie and the Cruisers

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 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 reminisc

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...

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.

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.