Living on the Edge of the World New Jersey Writers Take on the Garden State

"This collection proves that you can go home again, because when you are from New Jersey, you never really leave."

-- Mark Sceurman, Weird N.J.

"This funny, wistful, and appealingly oddball book covers more ground in New Jersey than the Turnpike. It's a fitting tribute to my beloved -- and deeply misunderstood -- home state."

-- Jancee Dunn, author of But Enough About Me...

Mobsters. Big hair. The smelly Turnpike. The poor cousin of its glittering neighbor Manhattan. Could that really be all there is to New Jersey? In Living on the Edge of the World, the best and brightest young writers from the much maligned state answer back with edgy, irreverent pieces of nonfiction paying tribute to New Jersey's unique place in the cultural consciousness.
Like a drive along the Garden State Parkway, their stories travel to just about every corner of the state, from Princeton and Hillside to Camden and Hoboken. In "Straight Outta Garwood," Tom Perrotta writes of the near inescapability of returning to his home state again and again in his novels; in "Exit 15W," Joshua Braff tells how all roads led back to the Jersey Girl he'd fallen for as a seventh-grader; Kathleen DeMarco takes a nostalgic look at her grandfather's cranberry bog in "The Family Farm"; Jonathan Ames recounts a failed attempt to consummate his flirtation with a boardwalk beauty in "Rose of the Jersey Shore"; and Frederick Reiken offers an elegy to a high-rise in Fort Lee that opens his eyes to a new, dangerous world.
A celebration of all that's weird and wonderful about the Garden State -- including Bruce Springsteen, the Nets, the Jersey Devil, the films of Kevin Smith, and Great Adventure -- Living on the Edge of the World will have New Jerseyans everywhere ready to stand and be counted.

Irina Reyn is a fiction and nonfiction writer who divides her time between Pittsburgh and Brooklyn. Her work has appeared in anthologies and publications such as The Forward, San Francisco Chronicle, The Moscow Times, Nextbook and Post Road. Born in Moscow, Irina was raised in Fair Lawn, New Jersey.

Contents

Introduction: From One Edge of the World to Another by IRINA REYN

[Exit 156: Fair Lawn]

The Family Farm by Kathleen Demarco

[Exit 7: Hammonton]

Rose of the Jersey Shore by Jonathan Ames

[Exit 82: Seaside Park]

Notes on Camden by Lauren Grodstein

[Exit 4: Camden]

A Rumble and a Scream by Caren Lissner

[Exit 7A: Great Adventure, Jackson]

Suburban Legends by Elizabeth Keenan

[Exit 9: Princeton Junction]

New Jersey: The Movie by Adam Lowenstein

[Exit 9: Highland Park]

Straight Outta Garwood by Tom Perrotta

[Exit 135: Garwood]

The Venice of New Jersey by Askold Melnyczuk

[Exit 137: Cranford]

New Jersey, 1963 by Dani Shapiro

[Exit 143B: Hillside]

Ogling the Statue of Liberty by Gaiutra Bahadur

[Exit 14B: Jersey City]

The Commute by Christian Bauman

[Exit 14C: Hoboken]

Hell, Home, or Hoboken by Caroline Leavitt

[Exit 14C: Hoboken]

Uncommon Criminal by James Kaplan

[Exit 145: West Orange]

The Muse of New Jersey by Cathi Hanauer

[Exit 145: West Orange]

Exit 15W by Joshua Braff

[Exit 15W: South Orange]

Horizon House by Frederick Reiken

[Exit 18W: Fort Lee]

So Close, Yet so Far by Lucinda Rosenfeld

[Exit 18W: Fort Lee]

Taking the Nets by David RotH

[Exit 165: Ridgewood]

Acknowledgments

About the Contributors

Credits