Surviving Jersey: Danger & Insanity in the Garden State

by Scott Loring Sanders

This is not your average New Jersey childhood: a circus tiger attack, a schoolmate's abduction, heartbreaking addicts, and a blind bad-ass granny. Scott Loring Sanders' suburban adolescence overflowed with perils: bone-crushing water slides, hitchhiking serial killers, a chilling collision in a '71 Impala. From his tough, complex father to Sanders' own reckoning of fatherhood and alcohol, SURVIVING JERSEY is a tour-de-force exploration of the risks that shape America's youth.

193 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2014

About the author

Scott Loring Sanders is the author of four books. Two novels, The Hanging Woods and Gray Baby (both with Houghton Mifflin), a short story collection-- Shooting Creek and Other Stories (Down & Out Books), and an essay collection-- Surviving Jersey: Danger & Insanity in the Garden State. His work has been included in Best American Mystery Stories, Noted in Best American Essays, and published widely in national journals and anthologies. He's a frequent contributor to Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, among many others. He's been the Writer-in-Residence at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France, and also a fellow at the Edward F. Albee Foundation in Montauk, NY. After growing up in New Jersey and then living in Virginia for twenty-five years, he now resides in Cambridge, MA and teaches creative writing at Emerson College and Lesley University. He is currently at work on a new novel of literary mystery/suspense set in Concord, Massachusetts.

For more information, visit his website at http://www.scottloringsanders.com

Reviews

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you grew up in Jersey In the 70s and 80s, lke the author and I did, some of these essays will have you in tears of laughter. (Oh yes, we remember Action Park!) But not all of the essays are about our Garden State; some are about growing up & making mistakes, coming clean, finding out who your friends truly are, and now being a parent too. Some funny, some deadly serious... a solid collection.

I received an ARC at Library Journal Day of Dialog.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this book was the most bizarre, surreal experience for me. Having grown up in Long Valley myself, I had forgotten (or suppressed) a lot of the same memories I share with Scott. I was five years old in 1979, the same age as the boy killed in the circus attack, and reading this book, I recalled some nightmares from that time (in my dreams I remembered that the boy had been walking back from the bathroom when attacked-I probably overheard a grown-up at school mention that detail). I was 11 years old in 1985 and took the school bus to the house of my babysitter on Fairview Rd most days after school - a few minutes' walk to the Getty station where Rachel met up with her killer and where we often roamed with no adult supervision. I was likely less than a mile from the spot on the day she was killed. I, too, had no adult who told me what happened or attempted to discuss it all - we got information only by overhearing the hushed whispers of adult conversations. Maybe that was the right decision by the adults in our lives as I remember my childhood as ideal, no trauma. Although looking back on it now, I feel a bit betrayed by those same adults.

I really appreciate Scott writing this book and telling these stories. My one criticism would be that it is clear some of these were pre-existing essays and are very good as stand alones, but the lack of chronology in the book as a whole is kind of distracting. The house-selling essay was excellent!

[Frank DiPrimo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked uo and didn't realize this was an autobiography tale. First, I must say I was raised and still live in Northern New Jersey - actually not far from where Scott Sanders lived some of his life and where some of these tales are told. I laughed and cried during the chapter on Action Park because I was there and experienced some of the stuff he writes about. That and other tales and information is why this book would appeal largely to NJ residents, at least at one time, mostly and somewhat only.
I t is a tale of his life and experiences -raised by his mother mostly and his journey of alcoholism and his friend's life and a childhood classmate's suicide shaped his life.

[Brooke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really hard book to put down!! I could of did without knowing about killing a fox, but the rest of the book was great. Mix between super funny stories of Scott growing up and some shitty parts where you want to punch Scott's friends right in the face.

[Derek Ludwig · Rating 3 out of 5]

1. this was a book of short essays about things that happened in the author's life
2. he grew up in northwestern NJ - had one essay about Action Park
3. Jeanne pulled this book out of the sorting room at the library

[Shawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written. Amazingly honest.