Interview with Author Laura Sassi

We are looking forward to next Tuesday, July 19 when New Jersey author Laura Sassi will visit our children’s story time session at 10:30 am.  The author will bring her skunk puppets to present her children's book 'Goodnight, Ark.'  The library blog (BHP) interviewed Ms. Sassi (LS) about her writing, her New Jersey connections and how she works. We hope you visit our story time next Tuesday and follow the author on her social media accounts which are listed at the end of this interview.

 

BHPL:  Welcome to the Berkeley Heights Public Library blog. We are excited about your story time visit coming up next week. Please tell our readers a little bit about yourself and your connection to New Jersey.

 

LS: Thanks for having me. I am looking forward to story time too. I am former teacher who is now lucky enough to be able to spend my days writing and being mom to our two kids. When my kids were little, I wrote while they napped. Those stories, crafts, and poems can now be found in various children’s publications including Highlights for Children, Spider, Ladybug, and Clubhouse Jr.

Over the years, I discovered that I had a special passion for rhyme and telling humorous stories in rhyme, so when my kids started school, I added rhyming picture books to my daily writing schedule. Goodnight, Ark, published by Zonderkidz and beautifully illustrated by Jane Chapman, is the first official fruit of all those years of writing and honing my craft.  My second picture book, Goodnight, Manger, also illustrated by Jane Chapman, released last year and I have two more picture books in the pipeline for publication in 2017 -2018.

Laura Sassi on  her porch

 

As for my New Jersey connection, I am a transplant. I moved around a lot as a child and have lived in places as far flung as Mexico, France, Minnesota, California and New Hampshire. I was born in Spain.  But, I met and married a Jersey boy and have now lived in the Garden State longer than I have lived anywhere else! I guess that makes me almost an official Jersey girl, right?!

 

BHPL: Yes, I think we can officially call you a New Jersey girl now! Our readers are interested in your process for writing. Please share a little about that.

LS: I am a percolator. That is, I like to reflect on new stories and poems, sometimes for weeks or months, before writing a first draft. When “percolating” I always keep a pen and notebook handy so I can jot down ideas. I make lists, play with possible plot twists, settings, points-of view etc.  I think I have a whole notebook’s worth of pages in which I played around with Goodnight, Ark before I actually sat down and wrote the story.  Once I was ready to write, I wrote the entire (early version) in one sitting.  But the story, at that point, was far from publishable.  Indeed, in addition to ample percolating, I would say the use of a time filter is a key part of my writing process.  Once I have a draft I’m happy with, I set it aside for several days, or weeks, before taking a re-look. This way I approach each revision with fresh eyes.  I repeat this process again and again until every word and moment pushes the story forward in a fun, meaningful way.

 

BHPL:  I like your description of yourself as a percolator! Also your habit of using a notebook to keep your ideas is useful and letting a little time elapse between revisions, what you call a time filter. Do you write at a certain time of day or in a special place?

LS: I try to set aside two good hours per day to write and reflect and be creative.  I have a laptop, so my work station is 100% portable and my favorite strategy to keep from getting stiff and to keep things fresh is to move around as I write.  Early on summer mornings, I like to take my laptop or notebook and a cup of tea and sit outside on the front porch. Later in the day, I often set up shop at the dining room table. And if I’m really engrossed in a story and the thoughts are spilling out, I’ve been known to write at the kitchen counter while cooking. My favorite spot is at the little writing table nestled by the fireplace in a cozy corner of my living room.  I also like taking my laptop “on the road” so I can write outside in a local park or at the pool.

 

BHPL: What is it like to work with an illustrator?

LS: I was thrilled when I learned that Zonderkidz had selected Jane Chapman to illustrate Goodnight, Ark. I was familiar with Jane’s work from Karma Wilson’s Bear Snores On series. Your readers might be surprised to learn, however, that there was no interaction between author and artist during the illustration process. The first glimpse I had of Jane’s work for Goodnight, Ark was when I got an advanced peek at the cover.  A few months later I received the folded galleys and saw for the first time Jane’s wonderful lantern-lit depictions of tigers and sheep, boars and quail all scurrying up to Noah’s bed. But, even though no direct collaboration was involved, her illustrations demonstrate that a lot of thought went into transforming my words into pictures and extending the story with little bits of added humor throughout. For example, I’ll never forget my daughter giggling the first time we read Goodnight, Ark and she noticed polka-dotted boxers hanging to dry on a clothesline and a toothbrush in a cup on the sill.

 

BHPL: The story of the animals having trouble sleeping during a stormy night on Noah's Ark is really cute in your book Goodnight, Ark. Everyone with kids knows getting them to sleep can be a project. Did this story start with getting your child to sleep? Did it work?

LS: Yes, the inspiration behind this story is personal experience. As anyone living in New Jersey knows all too well, we’ve had some fierce storms around here in the past few years including two hurricanes and many blustery snow and rain storms. When my children were little, both they and the dog would get scared during nighttime storms and come bounding into our room and our bed! Getting them back to their own beds, in the midst of howling winds and pounding rain, was often challenging, especially when my daughter was younger. So the mother in me thought it might be helpful and fun to write a story that would address some of those fears in a humorous, yet soothing way. And, just like the animals in this story, I found that often all my kids needed was a little extra TLC - maybe a soothing song or a quiet story - to re-settle them cozily back in their own beds.

 

BHPL: I know parents are always eager to read a new bedtime story to create that calming effect you describe. Thanks for stopping by our blog and I will see you next week at story time!

Cover illustration of  'Goodnight, Ark'

 

Related links for more information  on author Laura Sassi: 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LauraSassiTales

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LauraSassiTales

Blog: https://laurasassitales.wordpress.com

Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRsc-pKmKwM

Author to Visit Library Blog in July

New Jersey author Laura Sassi will present a story time on Tuesday, July 19 at 10:30 am. Ms. Sassi, author of the children's picture book, Goodnight, Ark, will bring her skunk puppets to entertain our regular Tuesday morning Story Fun toddlers and preschoolers. She will also be available for an interview on this blog next week. Stay tuned for that interview about her writing and creative process.

This blog's first author visitor was Susan Wittig Albert in the post 'The Other Half.' In that blog interview, the author and her husband Bill Albert, who co-wrote under the name Robin Paige a series of Edwardian mysteries, discussed their prolific careers and writing habits.

I just finished Ms. Albert's latest book, Blood Orange,  a China Bayles Mystery. As usual in this long-running series, the reader learns about growing and using herbs from the narrator/amateur sleuth China Bayles who runs an herb store and tea shop in Texas. Recipes mentioned in the story are included at the end of the book. The China Bayles series should appeal to fans of regional cozy style mysteries set in different parts of the U.S.A. and featuring various small business owners. For other culinary mystery series, try Cleo Coyle's coffeehouse series, Laura Childs' tea house series or Lucy Burdette's Key West food critic series. Ms. Burdette also wrote as Roberta Isleib and lived in Berkeley Heights. Look for our interview with her in this post about her book Looking for Murder.

Related resources;
Click on the labels 'Author visit'  or 'New Jersey Authors' in this blog for related posts. The tag cloud lives in the right-hand column of this blog.

Visit our Children's page for the roster of summertime programs for children at the library
http://berkeleyheightskids.blogspot.com/

Not So Fast - It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Not So Fast – It’s a Marathon, Not a Sprint

by Robert J. Daniher

How many times have you tried to write a story, novel, poem, article and given up after a few days because things weren’t going the way you thought they would?  The plot wasn’t working out, the characters didn’t come alive, or maybe you just got…bored.  After all, this writing thing is supposed to happen overnight – right?  I mean, who has time to wait around for an idea to develop on the page?  Didn’t Steinbeck write “The Grapes of Wrath” in just a few months?

Some time ago I had the pleasure of meeting one of my favorite short story writers, Robert Lopresti.  A prolific award-winning writer, Mr. Lopresti’s fiction has appeared in many magazines and anthologies.  He also reviews short fiction on his weekly blog: http://lbcrimes.blogspot.com/ .  But most importantly, he began his illustrious career as a page at the Berkeley Heights Public Library.  One of his shining moments while at the library was surviving a nasty run-in with a falling bookcase of Biographies.  There’s a nasty rumor going around that he accidentally pulled it down himself, but you didn’t hear that from me.  In late 2012 Mr. Lopresti was passing through NJ on his way to receive the Black Orchid Novella Award from the Nero Wolfe Society and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine when I met him for the first time. 

“You have such a prolific body of work.  How long does it take you to finish a story?” I asked, expecting him to say a week or a month.

“Oh, sometimes years,” he said.

Years?  Could that be?  I think he was half-joking, but there is some truth to that.  Sometimes, you need to put a draft away for a little while so you can come back to it with fresh eyes to revise.  Junot Diaz spent 7 years on “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Woa”, and that won the Pulitzer.  French poet, Paul Valery said, “A poem’s never finished, only abandoned.”  So, if your idea is taking a little longer than expected to germinate into the novel of your dreams, don’t rush it.  Think of writing as a marathon, not a sprint.

END

Just Do It - the Writing Life

Just Do It

by Robert J. Daniher

I am a procrastinator.  There…I said it.  The secret’s out.  I procrastinate, as my absence from contributing to this blog has proven.  Like most people (especially writers), I allow life to get in the way of things I truly enjoy doing.  And when it comes to writing there are tons of excuses to stay away from that keyboard.  Maybe it’s about the fear of failure, or not knowing how to begin, or even fear of success.  Fill in the blank.  But when you get right down to the nitty gritty, it’s really just about laziness.  And there’s only one way to overcome that.

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to see author Brad Parks at one of the NJ signings for his latest crime novel, “The Player”.  If you haven’t seen this guy speak, he’s a real cut-up.  A one-man-show, he sings, tells jokes, and acts out scenes from his novels in Oscar-worthy fashion.  We met a year ago at the Deadly Ink Mystery Conference in NJ and became fast friends.  Since then he’s offered some wonderful insight into the world of writing and shared an unlimited amount of zany stories to put the writing life into perspective.  After the crowd thinned out and the event began to wrap up I asked him about his writing schedule and he told me the same thing he always tells me.  “Just sit your butt down in the chair and type!”  It might seem like a minimalist approach to writing but, when you really think about it -- that’s all it takes.  Before you can worry about developing your voice, or style, or schedule, you first have to sit down in that chair and type.  That night I finally took his advice and sat down to write this very post you’re reading right now.  And guess what?  It worked!

END

Brad Parks links:

http://www.bradparksbooks.com/

https://www.facebook.com/BradParksBooks

 I am happy to welcome back Bob Daniher to our blog. I especially like his observation:

" Like most people (especially writers), I allow life to get in the way of things I truly enjoy doing."

So true, and I hope to follow his lead and get going on some projects of my own. To see more of Bob's posts on the blog, click here 

or type 'Daniher' into the search box at the top right of the blog. Thanks, Bob and welcome back.

- Anne

 

Killing the Poormaster

New Jersey author Holly Metz gave a slide show and talk about her 2012 book Killing the Poormaster, a saga of poverty, corruption, and murder in the Great Depression on Wednesday night, April 10 at the Berkeley Heights Public Library.

From the library press release in the Patch:
'Based on a true crime and murder trial in Hoboken, N.J. during the Depression, ‘Killing the Poormaster’ chronicles the true story of the murder  of Harry Barck, a poormaster who controlled public aid in Hoboken, New Jersey. Unemployed mason Joe Scutellaro was said to have stabbed Barck in the heart with a paper spike after the poormaster  denied aid to his starving family.'

The book describes the dire circumstances of many poor families in Hoboken during the last years of the Depression and the harsh tactics used by Harry Barck to deny starving families even a meager amount of public aid money to buy stale bread. The word that comes to mind of this reader and many reviewers about the bleakness of the situation is 'Dickensian.'

Ms. Metz's slide show of sepia and black and white photos of the principles and of old newspaper and family scrapbook clippings are very evocative of the misery of the times. The author spoke not only about the socio-economic and political setting of the book, but also the murder trial itself. Famed attorney Samuel Leibowitz led the defense of the accused Joe Scutellaro.

The audience which came out on a nasty night of hail and thunder asked probing questions at the end of the presentation and some purchased signed copies of the book. Many readers were very interested in the author's research techniques. The process, as Holly put it to me before her talk, of writing a non-fiction, historical book, interests people and they often ask about that. The research for this book is extensive and fascinating.

Because not everyone had read the book yet, one attendee asked what the verdict was. The library copy of the book has been out six times since January and has three holds on it. Add yourself to the holds list to find the answer to that question. I will say that the library does have the New York Times back to 1857 online which you can access with your library barcode number. You could look it up, as the saying used to go. Or you could read the book. For fans of American history, social issues, non-fiction, true crime and legal stories.

Local Historian Laurel Hessing's Translation of Israeli Play to Open in New York

On May 5, 2011, Winter Wedding, a play by Israeli playwright Hanoch Levin will open at the Theater for the New City.  Berkeley Heights' own Free Acres historian Laurel Hessing co-translated the play from the original Hebrew and will be visiting the library blog during the first week of May to discuss not only the play, but her own work as a playwright, historian, translator and editor.

Be sure to visit the links below for more information on the play, including how to get tickets.  Check back with the blog soon when Ms. Hessing visits to discuss her work.

Related links:

 Theater for the New City

 Free Acres website.

Author Visit: Linda Raedisch

Today, we welcome local author, Linda Raedisch to the Berkeley Heights Public Library (BHPL) blog to discuss her recently released book, Night of the Witches: folklore, traditions & recipes for celebrating Walpurgis Night (Llewellyn, 2011) Illus right: Linda's greening candles.

BHPL: Welcome. I was not familiar with Walpurgis Night until I read your book because it is not commonly celebrated here in the States. How did you get interested in Walpurgis Night?

Linda: I think it might all have started years and years ago with a postcard my aunt and uncle sent us from their vacation in the Harz. There was a nice picture of the mountains and a little note on the back about how the region was famous for its witches. I'd never heard of a place famous for its witches, except Salem and Bernalillo, so I kind of filed that tidbit away. Then later, I got a subscription to German Life magazine. Every couple of years they do a piece on Walpurgis Night celebrations in the Harz, so there were those witches again. While I was working on a book about Halloween, I got the idea that it would be fun to write a whole book about Walpurgis Night, something that hadn't been done yet in English.

BHPL: Bernalillo?

Linda: It's outside of Albuquerque, but that would be another book.

BHPL: a clarification for our readers: the Harz is a mountainous area of northern Germany with the highest mountain being the Brocken.

BHPL: Okay. You've described Walpurgis Night as the European Halloween. Is it as popular there as Halloween is here?

Linda: Well, Walpurgis Night is exactly halfway around the year from Halloween, and in many ways it's the inverse of Halloween, even though it looks a lot like it. In America, we've been consistently trying to kill Halloween, but it's a very organic festival, so it keeps coming back and now it's even spreading. Halloween is centered on the very real tradition of trick-or-treating, while the German Walpurgisnacht is really based on rumors- - rumors dating to the time of Charlemagne. There were supposed to be strange pagan things going on in the Harz, witches were supposed to fly to the Brocken every April 30. There were accepted ways of scaring those witches away, such as noisemaking and bonfires, but nothing so standardized as our trick-or-treating. The traditions were very localized, varying from village to village. In fact, in the extreme northern part of Germany where all of my relatives are, it isn't celebrated at all, though they've now adopted Halloween.

BHPL: Are we trying to kill Halloween?

Linda: Yes, I think we are. Mischief Night has really taken a nose dive, and now we're telling kids, don't wear masks, don't wear scary costumes, don't go trick-or-treating in your neighborhood; go to the mall because it's oh so much safer! Walpurgisnacht, on the other hand, is a holiday that people have consciously revived. By the 1800's, when people were starting to lose their belief in witches, the concept of Walpurgis Night started to look very romantic and they worked hard to keep it going. Walpurgis Night in the Harz is now a big tourist attraction. But if I could give an award to the ballsiest celebration of Walpurgis Night, it would go to the villages of the Czech Republic. They don't call it Walpurgis Night, but it's the same day. They celebrate by eating, drinking and building really, really big fires. And then jumping over them. Even in Prague, they try to get as many people as possible to dress up as witches. They even hand out free besoms.

BHPL: Besom being a twig broom, right?

Linda: Right. The besom is the quintessential witch's broom.

BHPL: How did you come by the recipes in the book? Are they family recipes?

Linda: For the most part, no. The Quarkkeulchen comes from my grandmother, and the Rote Grutze, or Berry Porridge, has been made forever on my mother's side, but I used a slightly different recipe from hers. For the traditional Scandinavian recipes like the Sima, for instance, I consulted as many recipes as I could, then cobbled together the easiest version. There were many failures in my kitchen, most notably the Finnish May Day fritters. Big mess there the first time around.

BHPL: On to the crafts in the book: how did you come up with the craft ideas?

Linda: Many are just new, witchy takes on established crafts, like an origami kitchen witch instead of a wooden one. Most of them are easy things that you can do at home with paper and tinfoil and popsicle sticks. And then I thought of the Huckster-Witch in Faust, what sort of things would she have been selling up there on the Brocken? That's how I came up with the Witch's Brew pouch and the Walpurgis wands. (Illus left: Linda's smudge sticks/Walpurgis wands.)
BHPL: I know that some people have asked you why there is no dedication in your book?

Linda: Basically, because my editors didn't ask me. If they had, I'm sure I would've come up with something, but I'm not sure what. It amazes me how many authors dedicate their books to members of their families. I love my family, but they're not much help when it comes to writing books. In the dedication in Smoke and Mirrors, Neil Gaiman says something to the effect that he wrote the book in spite of his family, rather than thanks to them. I should say that my sister was a big help with the technical aspects of formatting the book after I had completely screwed it up in Google docs, but she already has the photo credit for taking my author photo, and I figured that was enough. Plus, I gave her a Starbucks card.

BHPL: What was your favorite part of the book to write?

Linda: The glossary! After I had met my deadline and submitted the completed manuscript, my acqusitions editor, Elysia Gallo, said, How 'bout a glossary? I asked her if it should be dry and scholarly or if I could have fun with it and she said absolutley have fun with it. So I did. Aside from that, my favorite part was the entry on the Valkyries. As I write that word, I know people will be thinking, Oh, valkyries, horned helmet, big boobs, blond braids. I enjoyed trying to blow that image out of the water. The valkyries are so much scarier than that. Truly terrifying. I really hope I run into some this April 30th.

BHPL: What books are you reading right now?

Linda: I'm listening to The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie and I'm reading the Chalice by Phil Rickman

BHPL: I'll have to try those. I've really enjoyed your book recommendations in the past and I think you were the one who started the cult of Kate Atkinson here among the library staff.

Linda: Yes, I'm on the holds list for her Started Early, Took My Dog.

BHPL: Thanks for visiting our blog. I loved your book and recommend it highly. I also want to remind our readers and library patrons that you will be doing a program at BHPL tomorrow afternoon at 2:00 PM when you will share some of your delicious food and teach us how to make an origami kitchen witch - which I'm hoping will work some magic on my cooking skills. You will also be having an exhibit related to your book in the display case at the New Providence Public Library for the month of April which I'm looking forward to seeing and in the interest of full-disclosure: I have contributed two witch boxes which were really fun to make and were inspired by your book.

Night of the Witches, folklore, traditions & recipes for celebrating Walpurgis Night

Book Review: Night of the Witches, folklore, traditions & recipes for celebrating Walpurgis Night by Linda Raedisch. Woodbury, MN: Llewllyn 2011


In Germany and other Northern European countries, Walpurgis Night is celebrated on the evening of April 30th with bonfires, mischief, noisemaking, dancing and of course, drinking. In Night of the Witches, author Linda Raedisch explains that this traditional witches’ meeting on the highest mountain in Northern Germany is comparable to the American Halloween, although it shares May 1st eve with the Celtic celebration of Beltane. In a charming storytelling voice, Raedisch takes readers through the history of this ancient festival, weaving art, music, literature, linguistics and stories from around the world into her narrative. In keeping with her vast knowledge of folklore, the author connects the dots from the Walpurgis Night scenes in Goethe’s Faust, to references in Grimm’s fairy tales, Fraser’s Golden Bough and Mendelssohn’s music. But this is no dry academic tome. Night of the Witches presents the history and ancient lore of Walpurgisnacht with sly humor and provides recipes and crafts for readers who would like to celebrate the beginning of spring in their own households.

With the current interest in witches reflected in the bestseller list by Deborah Harkness’ A Discovery of Witches, perhaps the vampire craze of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series is giving way to another form of supernatural beings. If you want to know how these beliefs began and persisted through the ages, Night of the Witches will entertain and enlighten you. Do you know why loud noises are commonly favored at many celebrations? “Noisemaking remains a time-honored method of driving out evil at important turning points of the year, such as New Year’s Eve…” (6) Raedisch tells us.

What’s up with bonfires? “Our ancestors understood, perhaps better than we do today, that there is no such thing as a free lunch. If they wanted their crops and livestock to flourish, they had to offer something in return to the source of the abundance.” (7) The bonfires were used for live sacrifices, later straw substitutes. In chapter 5, A Field Guide to Witches, Raedisch describes thirteen kinds of witches, from hags to Valkyries to weathermakers, ending the chapter with a recipe for Poor Hags (similar to French toast), an origami kitchen witch, and a paper crone’s mask – one of which hangs in our library staff room. Full disclosure: why does the library have a crone’s mask? No, we are not a coven of witches, at least I don’t think we are. Author Linda Raedisch is a colleague at the library where I work, a friend, and the only person I know who has not only an encyclopedic knowledge of folklore, a knack for languages, a talent for arts, crafts and cooking, all wrapped up in a wry sense of humor.

This book is recommended for anyone interested in folklore, fairytales, German traditions, cultural studies, and of course, witches. Teenagers who enjoy fantasy books like Harry Potter and the Twilight series should read this non-fiction exploration of the subject. College students of linguistics and anthropology would also find this title fascinating.

Night of the Witches author Linda Raedisch will visit the Berkeley Heights Public Library Blog on Friday, April 1st for a question and answer session.

N.J. Author Linda Raedisch to Visit Library Blog

It’s no April fool’s joke! Local author Linda Raedish will visit our blog on Friday, April 1st for a question and answer session. Ms. Raedish will also visit the library in person on Saturday, April 2 between 2:00 and 3:00 p.m. to teach us how to make an origami kitchen witch and to share recipes and food from her book, Night of the Witches: Folklore, Traditions & Recipes for Celebrating Walpurgis Night (Llewellyn Press, 2011.) Check back with us this week as we prepare for her visit on Friday April 1. Please email any questions you have for the author to reference[at]bhplnj[dot]org or write them in the comment section of this blog post.

A Call From Jersey by P.F. Kluge

Last week I posted a bit about the beginning of A Call From Jersey, the recently published novel by P.F. Kluge, Kenyon College's writer-in-residence and a Berkeley Heights native. You may remember it's about an immigrant who comes over from Germany a decade before World War II began. Within a few years Hans gets a job at the Ballantine Brewery in Newark and starts building a house for his family on Hilltop Avenue in Berkeley Heights. He has a brother, Heinz, who returns to Germany in 1938 and from whom Hans has not heard from since. Or shall I say yet, because when Hans goes looking for Heinz you won't be able to put the book down.

Hans' son George grows up as "college material" in Berkeley Heights, attending a regional high school that drew on "grungy enclaves that staffed oil refineries and old colonial enclaves where genius scientists went to work at Bell Telephone Laboratories. There were Portnoy-ish subdivisons within commuting range of Wall Street and the garment district. There were nests of Old World Italians and Germans and moderately left-wing Jews besides." He becomes a nationally syndicated travel writer whose mediocrity embarrasses his father enough . . to . . . well, you have to read this part yourself. I will just hint that the Berkeley Heights Public Library is involved.

P.F. Kluge will read from A Call From Jersey and one of his early novels, Eddie and the Cruisers ("the book that spawned the movie") at the Berkeley Heights Public Library on Thursday, September 30 at 7 p.m. Light refreshments will be served. This program is free and open to the public. Bring a copy of his book if you'd like one signed. You can sign up here. We'll be showing Eddie and the Cruisers the previous day, Wednesday, September 29 at 2 p.m.

Berkeley Heights in Literary News?

I know, that was my reaction too. (Free Acres was a literary hotbed what with MacKinlay Kantor and Thorne Smith, but that was over 50 years ago.) Anyway, yesterday I opened the Star-Ledger and read on the front page of the New Jersey section:
"To Finish His Journey, Author Returns to New Jersey":

Author P.F. Kluge’s life has been a global travelogue, taking him far from his childhood home in Berkeley Heights . . .

Not only is P.F. Kluge from Berkeley Heights, but parts of his latest novel, A Call From Jersey, take place in and around Berkeley Heights. A Call From Jersey begins with a German steel worker named Hans, joining his brother Heinz, an inveterate gambler, in New York in the late 1920s. Not too much later Hans tags along with Heinz on a visit to Madame Bey's training camp for boxers in Chatham, watching Max Schmeling prepare for his match with Jack Sharkey. (The road in the following passage is River Road, the valley the land that slopes down to the Passaic.)

I heard a last car pulling out of the orchard, onto the road that led out of the valley where the training camp was located, already falling into darkness, while the sun just caught the top of the trees, beech and oak and maple. This was the first I'd seen of the country outside New York. It was different from Germany, where every inch of ground, field, forest was spoken for. America was untended. Uncared for. The woods were full of fallen trees and branches that no one collected, all that firewood going to waste. I liked it in New Jersey. But not Heinz. He reminded me of how someone sits next to a car that's broken down, waiting for the mechanic to come.

P.F. Kluge will read from A Call From Jersey and from Eddie and the Cruisers on Thursday, September 30 from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Berkeley Heights Public Library. Feel free to bring questions and a copy of one of his books if you'd like one signed.