"New Jersey’s lack of defining character traits – its facelessness, its rootlessness, its lukewarmness – make it an ideal portal to get inside the soul of a nation that becomes more faceless, rootless and generic – more soulless – by the day, a nation where regional signifiers have been sanded smooth by interstate highways, franchise restaurants, big box stores, shopping malls, subdivisions, all the strangling, interchangeable links of the corporate chains. In contemporary America, anomie is a moveable feast, and its template was exported from New Jersey."
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Bill Morris on the great novels of the garden state. (via millionsmillions)
The tone of this article really annoys me. And something tells me that Bill Morris would gleefully accept that reaction from a Jersey girl.
I think he should add Superfudge by Judy Blume to the list because that family moves to New Jersey from Manhattan because (quoted from memory) “Pennsylvania is too far and Connecticut is too expensive,” and the main character has a hard time adjusting to the awfulness of the Jerz. I think the dad is even writing a book or something. The ending is happy because they decide to move back to NYC.
(via millionsmillions)
