New novelist takes on the legends of New Jersey

By Dan Szczesny
HippoPress.com

"The Lost Legends of New Jersey," by Frederick Reiken, Harcourt Publishing, 2000, 317 pages.

Anyone who has ever spent significant time in New Jersey understands that there are legends-the endless dunes along the shore, the cranberry bogs, the Jersey Devil, the tiny slice of Victorian England at the southern tip...the Meadowlands.

In his new novel, “The Lost Legends of New Jersey,” Massachusetts writer Frederick Reiken understands much of what makes New Jersey more than a highway between New York and Philadelphia.

In fact, he understands this so completely that New Jersey is really the main character in the novel.

Sure, there is a coming of age story about a boy named Anthony Rubin and his highly disfunctional Jewish family. Anthony’s mother is, shall we say, eccentric. His father is kind hearted, but flawed and has an affair with the mother of Anthony’s best friend. This tears the friendship apart over the course of the novel, which takes place in the late 70s and early 80s. Anthony meets and falls in love with an equally oddball girl next door. Anthony learns to play hockey.

You get the idea, standard stuff.

But it’s the legends that make this novel. Reiken plays off of the Garden State’s mythology, leading his characters through an enchanted forest of adventures only found in New Jersey.

At one point, the boys find themselves in the middle of a “syringe tide” along the shore. Illegally dumped at sea, the syringes float ashore and the coastal lifeguards have hired junior lifeguards to collect the needles. Anthony and Jay Berkowotz steal down to the beach in the middle of the night.

“They weren’t Asbury Park junior lifeguards, but it was bright from all the boardwalk lights and easy to find syringes. They gathered them out of habit, dropping them into an empty popcorn box they pulled out of a trash can. When they hit Allenhurst Beach they kept on walking...They got as far as the next town, Deal, then something happened. As if some magical wind were blowing, the ocean sky grew clear and dark, and filled with stars.”

In another scene, four friends become lost in the Meadowlands, that mysterious swamp land just across the river from New York City. But instead of finding the bodies of mob hits, or industrial waste, they stumble upon the remains of high school band equipment, tubas, and trumpets poking up out of the swamp grass and mud like brass gravemarkers. It’s a remarkable scene.

Still, Reiken, who is a New Jersey native, is not content to let the obvious joy he feels toward his home state speak for itself. The chapters switch voice and perspective. Sometimes, there are several different perspectives within the same chapter. Sometimes, there are even time shifts within pages of each other.

It’s too much, and distracts from the story.

Reiken tries too hard to be a serious writer. The beauty of the book lies in its atmosphere. Whether you’ve lived in New Jersey or know it only from expressway jokes, Reiken makes the reader fall for all the legends.

New Jersey is enough. Reiken knows that, but should have spent more time working on that level. “The Lost Legends of New Jersey” is an intriguing novel, but could have been a stronger and more satisfying read if only Reiken had left it to the legends.

Dan J. Szczesny can be reached at danszczesny@aol.com.