Two American Studies professors from Rutgers University here show how the New Jersey Turnpike--that "ugly icon,'' America's "widest and most traveled'' road--has found its way into the minds, if not the hearts, of artists and drivers alike. In poet Allen Ginsberg, singer Bruce Springsteen, commuters and roadside home owners lulled to sleep by its drone of traffic, this 12-lane asphalt monster has inspired powerful reactions, from admiration to anger. The authors consider the first asparagus patch plowed up to lay the road; the $70,000 salary a contemporary toll-taker can earn with hefty overtime; and the not infrequent lawlessness of the highway patrol. From the gray-flannel-suit diligence that built it, to the mixture of necessity, practicality and venality that maintains it, the New Jersey Turnpike proves to be an enthralling though unlikely subject.

Looking for America on the New Jersey Turnpike

History

Angus Kress Gillespie

Michael Aaron Rockland

Americas

Rutgers University Press

The Turnpike. The Parkway. The Shore. Malls. Mobsters. Bad accents. No other state in America elicits reaction quite like New Jersey. Though the Garden State has risen to the top of pop culture consciousness, its significant and diverse literary culture has gone sorely under the radar--until now.
What's Your Exit? A Literary Detour through New Jersey is a collection of contemporary fiction, poetry, and essay inspired by a place that piques the curiosity of all who have set foot in it...and those who haven't. Themes of family, friendship, sex, love, fear, nostalgia and longing populate this anthology, which features forty-nine writers whose visions of the Jersey landscape are as eclectic and beautiful, and as unnerving and mysterious and bold as the place that unites them.

What's Your Exit?: A Literary Detour Through New Jersey

Literature & Fiction

Joyce Carol Oates

Tom Perrotta

Robert Pinsky

Louise DeSalvo

Paul Lisicky

Jackie Corley

Timothy Liu

Joe Vallese

Alicia A. Beale

Susanne Antonetta

Jason Biggs

J. Robert Lennon

Alicia Ostriker

JC Todd

United States

Word Riot Pr

STONES is a novel simultaneously serious and comic. It takes place in one day as its protagonist, Jack Berke, accompanies his aged mother Rachel to visit the family graves  in Brooklyn, Queens, and further out on Long Island. As Jack negotiates the congested expressways  from cemetery to cemetery, he contemplates the tombstones, the lives of family members who lie under them, the stones that, according to Jewish custom, he places on those tombstones, and the stone that has for a lifetime resided in his own heart.

Stones

Contemporary

Hansen Publishing Group

An American Diplomat in Franco Spain is filled with Michael Aaron Rockland's experiences as a cultural attache at the United States embassy in Madrid, Spain in the 1960s. He captures episodes of historical and cultural significance as he goes about doing his country's business. Some of his stories are quite poignant while others are quite amusing. He shares with his readers how he avoided shaking Francisco Franco's hand, how he spent a day with Martin Luther King in Madrid, how his son was selected to be in the movie Dr. Zhivago, how he came to know several Kennedys, including Senator Edward Kennedy, Pat Lawford Kennedy, and Jackie Kennedy, and how the U.S. accidentally dropped four unarmed hydrogen bombs on Spain. Throughout these stories, Rockland explains Spanish culture, past and present, with his experiences involving bull fighting, being a Jew in a very Catholic Spain, his love affair with Spanish food, and what is lost in translation.

An American Diplomat in Franco Spain

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Married to Hitler

Adam Levin is a Jewish college professor going through a divorce in the mid-1970s. He lives in a typical New Jersey suburban town, but nothing is typical about Adam--he's obsessed with his hatred of Adolf Hitler and anything German. His internal and external adventures are filled with uncomfortable and bizarre situations leading to zany and hilarious outcomes. Only Adam can go on a vacation to the Grand Canyon and fall deeply in love with a German lesbian, who proclaims he is "married to Hitler" and must confront his past and divorce himself from Hitler.

Literary

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Michael Aaron Rockland. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Michael Aaron Rockland