The Books of the States: New Jersey (15 electoral votes)

For a state that has always struggled to find its identity in the shadow of nearby cities--while being best known perhaps for the highway that gets you from of those cities to the other--New Jersey has produced a powerhouse lineup of writers and books that aren't just from Jersey, but are consciously about Jersey. There are a few mid-size states that might be able to compete with NJ's top 15, but, with the exception perhaps of Louisiana, I'm not sure that any of them will be as full of books that don't just happen to be from that state--they couldn't be from anywhere else. Here are my suggestions:

• Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth
• American Pastoral by Philip Roth: You could easily fill out the whole list of 15 with books from Newark's favorite son, who has sent almost as many book-review copyeditors to their reference books to check the spelling of "Weequahic" as Faulkner did for "Yoknapatawpha." Cases could certainly be made for including Portnoy's Complaint, The Plot Against America, and Patrimony, among others, but these two make fitting bookends for his remarkably prolific career, and are also the most directly about the social landscape of New Jersey.
• The Pine Barrens by John McPhee
• A Sense of Where You Are: Bill Bradley at Princeton by John McPhee: Two local books from the New Yorker master who was born in Princeton, attended Princeton High and Princeton U., and taught for decades at, yes, Princeton.
• Paterson by William Carlos Williams: American poetry doesn't get more local than this modernist classic from the good doctor.
• The Sportswriter by Richard Ford: A Mississippi-raised writer who has written so well about Montana nailed the voice of the Eastern suburbs with Haddam's Frank Bascombe.
• Clockers by Richard Price: A short drive down the turnpike from fictional Haddam is fictional Dempsy, where Price set this modern crime classic.
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz: How far does the shadow of the Dominican dictator Trujillo extend? All the way to a lonely sci-fi geek trying to find some game in the Rutgers dorms.
• One for the Money by Janet Evanovich: Evanovich found her voice from the very beginning with the tough but charming Trenton bail bondswoman Stephanie Plum.
• Tell No One by Harlan Coben: Coben's first post-Bolitar thriller brought him back to his home state for what was one of his most popular books even before the hit French movie adaptation this summer.
• The Figured Wheel by Robert Pinsky: Three decades of collected poems from the former Poet Laureate, although you might instead choose his more recent collection, Jersey Rain, for obvious reasons.
• The Meadowlands by Robert Sullivan: Sullivan found the stubborn survival of nature in Jersey's toxic swamps; he didn't find Hoffa.
• No Cause for Indictment: An Autopsy of Newark by Ronald Porambo: Under threats to his life, Porambo reported the '67 Newark riots in what Nixonland author Rick Perlstein has called "a monument in investigative journalism."
• Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer: The Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the decisive battles of Trenton and Princeton in the winter after the Declaration of Independence.
• Racing in the Street: The Springsteen Reader, edited by June Skinner Sawyers: You didn't think we'd get out of here without the Boss, did you? Is there a great (or even really good) Springsteen book? And how about Mr. Frank Sinatra of Hoboken, NJ? Where's the great Sinatra book? A life like his certainly deserves the two-volume treatment that Guralnick gave Elvis--I'd be surprised if someone isn't under contract to write that right now.

That's a very solid lineup, but I'm sure I'm missing something. Please fill in the gaps, or blow my picks out of the water entirely. --Tom

• See all of our state posts
• Read our introduction to The Books of the States: 50 States, 538 Books
• Read our interview with State by State editors Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey

Comments

[Who on September 19, 2008 at 07:47 AM]

What is this New Jersey thing you speack of. You mean it is not just an over priced toll road??

Fegetaboutit, just goo and gets me a full pie!!!

[stephen baker on September 21, 2008 at 10:33 AM]

If you can include two by Roth, I'd throw in Independence Day by Richard Ford. It's got a lot of NJ in it, real and fictional, and I consider it his best book.

[AB on September 24, 2008 at 01:45 AM]

Do you think Allen Ginsberg is more SF than NJ?

[on September 25, 2008 at 01:44 PM]

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

[veggies on September 28, 2008 at 04:04 PM]

I'm not a fan of the rest of his work, but ELECTION by Tom Perrotta is pretty good and considering the history of dirty politics in my state, the novel uses NJ as more then just a setting but as a target of its critique (of course, the Clinton Era is targeted as well).

[Elinor on October 24, 2008 at 09:43 AM]

Daniel Pinkwater?

[knapp on November 07, 2008 at 11:42 PM]

The garden state also happens to be the final resting place of Walt Whitman. I'd say Leaves of Grass.

[Ken Shane on November 08, 2008 at 08:00 AM]

Tom Perotta - The Wishbones
Frederick Reiken - The Lost Legends of New Jersey
Two Guys From Verona - James Kaplan
Nearings Grace - Scott Sommer

[Sea Isle City Guy on November 12, 2008 at 07:39 PM]

This list is fantastic, mainly the primer about Bruce Springstein. As a big fan of the Boss, I'd love to get a chance to check that out.

[Conor and Emma on April 04, 2009 at 08:01 PM]

What about C. K. Williams!!!???