PF Kluge – ~*LunaSea*~

Kluge, P.F. Eddie and the Cruisers. Viking Press, 1980.

Reason read: Kluge’s birth month is in January. Read in his honor.

If you think about it, the premise for Eddie and the Cruisers is pretty simple. A year out of college, in 1958, Frank “Wordman” Ridgeway joins the band Eddie and the Parkway Cruisers. Front man Eddie is a charismatic and ambitious singer who knows his music is going to make it big. For awhile Eddie is right. He’s got the talent. He’s got the looks. He’s got the girl. Like all creatives, Eddie’s demise comes when he takes his music in another direction and his listeners don’t understand; worse, they hate it. Eddie rages into the night and has a horrible accident, ending his life. Back to narrator, Frank Ridgeway. Twenty years later, Frank is an English teacher and has put Eddie and the Cruisers far behind him. That is, until he starts hearing Cruisers songs on the radio and he is visited by a reporter wanting to know about recordings that went missing – Eddie and the Parkway Cruisers tape recordings from “that” night. Memories come flooding back and all of a sudden Wordman needs to know what happened to the rest of the band. More importantly, where are those tapes?
While the novel takes a dark and ominous turn towards the end, I enjoyed Frank’s naïve narrative. It truly was a coming of age story for the Wordman.

Author fact: Kluge wrote a bunch of books and I am reading seven of them for the Challenge.

Book trivia: Kluge is clever. There are a bunch of sly references that people might not get: Gary Gilmore. Do people even know who he is anymore? And who will get the “Fairly Ridiculous” reference? I only did because I went to the Teaneck Ridiculous (as apposed to the Madison campus Kluge referred to in the book).
Additional (obvious) book trivia: I think everyone knows Eddie and the Cruisers was made into a movie of the same name. I actually got to see it for the first time last weekend! And! And. And, there is a sequel…Eddie Lives! Great googly moogly!

Music (and you know there is going to be a lot): “Auld Lang Syne”, “Ballad of Davy Crockett”, Barry Manilow, Bee Gees, Bill Haley, Billy Eckstine, Bo Diddley, Bobby Freeman’s “Do You Want to Dance?”, Buddy Holly, Captain and Tennille’s “Love Will Keep Us Together”, Carly Simon, Charlie and Inez Foxx, Chuck Berry, Coasters’ “Searchin'”, “Young Blood”, Debbie Reynolds’ “Tammy”, Del Vikings, Diana Ross, Dinah Washington, Donna Summer, Drifters’ “Ruby Baby”, Elvis Presley’s “Teddy Bear”, “Love Me Tender”, Eddie Cochran, Everly Brothers, Fats Domino, Frankie Laine, Frankie Lyman’s “Why Do Fools Fall in Love?”, Funky Company, Gene Vincent, Glenn Miller, Gogi Grant, Howlin’ Wolf, Ike Turner, Ink Spots, Isaac Hayes, James Brown, James Taylor, Janis Joplin, Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Whole Lotta Shaking Goin’ On”, Jim Croce’s “I Got a Name”, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Reed, John Denver, Johnny Lee, Johnny Mathis, Jose Feliciano, Judy Garland, Kay Kyser, Kris Kristofferson, LaVern Baker, Lee Andrews and the Hearts’ “Teadrops”, Leonard Warren, Liberace, Linda Ronstadt’s “Blue Bayou”, Little Richard’s “Long Tall Sally”, Michael Jackson, Mick Jagger, Mills Brothers, Muddy Waters, national anthem, Nolan Strong’s “The Wind”, Otis Redding’s “Dock of the Bay”, Pat Boone’s “Love Letters in the Sand”, Paul Anka’s “Having My Baby”, “Peggy Sue”, “Purple People Eater”, “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head”, Ray Charles’ “Moonlight Gambler”, Rod Stewart, Roy Hamilton’s ” Ebb Tide”, Roy Orbison, Rufus Thomas, Russ Colombo, Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come”, the Stones, “Stranded in the Jungle”, “Sunday Kind of Love”, Teresa Brewer, “When the Moon Hits Your Eye Like a Big Pizza Pie”, Wayne Newton, and Woody Herman.

Eddie and the Cruisers Songs: On the Dark Side, Blue Lady, Down on My Knees, Far-Away Woman, Fast Exit, It’ll Happen Tonight, Leaving Town, Some Kind of Loving, These Oldies But Goodies Remind Me of You, the Tide, and Call On Me.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter “P.F. Kluge: Too Good To Miss” (p 139).

Kluge, P.F. Alma Mater: a College Homecoming.Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1993.

This is an interesting Kluge book. It’s basically a memoir about how Kluge went back to his alma mater for an academic year to teach a writing/literature course. Each chapter is subsequent month in the semester, starting with (obviously) orientation in September and ending with graduation in May. What makes this book so interesting is the honest look Kluge takes of academia in general. As someone who has experienced both sides of the desk (student and faculty), he is free to examine the day to day as well as the behind-closed-doors politics of campus life. Every topic is fair game: tenure, scholarship, Greek life, dormitory living, the hiring process, alumni relations, the formation of committees to name a few. But it was the admissions process; specifically the process of accepting prospective students I found really interesting. Others in academia have said Kluge could have been writing about their institution. Admittedly, Kluge takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to Alma Mater but what was really surprising was how negative a picture Kluge paints of Kenyon. The disparaging comments were so frequent I was tempted to reread the book just to take note of every dissatisfaction. As an aside, most of the negativity didn’t come from Kluge directly. It came from faculty, the occasional student, alumni, and even the president of the college, just to name a few.

Other observations: It almost felt contractual for Kluge to mention past famous faculty and students (Ransom, Jarrell, Doctorow & Wright) several different times throughout Alma Mater. Also, I made the mistake of reading Kluge reviews on a “Rate My Professor” site. I’m sorry I did because it altered how I now feel about Alma Mater. I find this troubling because I had finished Alma before reading the reviews yet I was still influenced.

Lines I liked, “As sure as shit and feathers on a chicken coop floor, there’s always something” (p 14), “Was it the fullness of their lives or the emptiness that propelled them?” (p 144), “You need to learn the rules before you break them, master the traditions that you add to, or subvert” (p 145) and last one – “It’s like taking out my eyeballs and rolling them in a plate of breadcrumbs” (p 198). Funny!

Reason read: January is Kluge’s birth month. Read in honor of that birth.

Author fact: Because I have read another Kluge book I had to refer back to that review to see what I said for an “author fact” – simply because I didn’t want to say the same thing twice. Truth be told, I wasn’t writing author facts back than. So, this will be my first “fact” about Kluge and it’s an obvious one: Kluge wrote a book everyone has heard about, at least in major motion picture form – Eddie and the Cruisers.

Book trivia: Even though Alma Mater is a memoir of sorts, Kluge does not include any photographs. Bummer. At the very least I would have liked a picture of his dog especially since he meant so much to Kluge. 🙂

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter “P.F. Kluge: Too Good To Miss” (p 140).