Bruce Springsteen's America

November 3, 2003
The best part of this disappointing work is the dissection of Springsteen's lyrics but Coles's bid to highlight average Americans' interpretation of the Boss's songs falls short on several levels. Many of what are essentially oral interviews with about a dozen everyday Americans—from truck drivers to lawyers—are rambling and at times barely coherent. Curiously, many of the songs they discussed come from Springsteen's Nebraska
and The
Ghost of Tom Joad
, two of Springsteen's least popular albums. The focus on these solo albums may have been a conscious decision by Coles (The Moral Intelligence of Children
; Children of Crisis
) since they fit his attempt to portray Springsteen as a singer/poet in the manner of Arlo Guthrie, but it leaves out much of Springsteen's best material. And worst of all, the interviews, complete with short biographies of the people featured, generally offer little insight. The liveliest piece is one in which a teacher and her students discuss the messages in several Springsteen songs. Although fans may find themselves singing some of Springsteen's lyrics that appear in the book, the work is mostly full of flat notes.

November 1, 2003
After a lean 1990s, Bruce Springsteen has reasserted himself as America's premier rock poet. With this resurgence come two new books, further cementing the singer-songwriter's iconic stature. Pulitzer Prize winner Coles (psychiatry & medical humanities, Harvard; Children in Crisis) presents reflections on Springsteen from ten average Americans, not die-hard fans, just ordinary folks who have connected in some meaningful way to Springsteen's work. The goal: to lift Springsteen above the role of common "rock star" and make him a people's poet in the tradition of Walt Whitman and especially Coles's mentor, William Carlos Williams. So what's not to like? Maybe it's the way the author manages to take ten different human beings and make them sound like the same person, using similar patterns of speech and turns of phrase. Maybe it's the clumsy attempt to translate conversational speech into the written word, concealing the speakers' pertinent points in an incessant clutter of parenthetical asides (most with meaningless exclamation points!). Or maybe it's one too many bad puns on Springsteen's unauthorized nickname, "The Boss." While an occasional glimmer of insight or individuality breaks through (the Rhode Island police officer is a hoot), the herky-jerky prose makes this relatively slim volume seem twice as long as it is. Purchase only if demand is high. Photographer Stefanko gives us a generous sampling of portraits that he took of Springsteen and his E Street Band during several sessions between 1978 and 1982, including the cover shots for Darkness on the Edge of Town and The River. Stefanko's work with Springsteen was limited: there are only a handful of live concert photos and no candid shots, but these powerful portraits do cover the critical years when Springsteen rose from critics' darling to near superstar. Not essential, but of high interest to Springsteen's many loyal fans (the Boss himself wrote the introduction).-Lloyd Jansen, Stockton-San Joaquin Cty. P.L., CA

Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2003
In an unusual pairing, famous child psychologist Coles pays homage to rock musician Springsteen. In two long essays that serve, in effect, as a foreword, Coles quotes the late novelist Walker Percy on Springsteen's wide appeal: "His songs are about America, without hyping the country up and without knocking the country down. . . . he sings " of" us while singing " to "us." Furthermore, Coles connects Springsteen to another New Jersey native, William Carlos Williams, calling them poets of ordinary American people. And in the sections that follow, that point is underscored as people from all walks of life talk in loving detail, as if they were in a conversation with Springsteen himself, about the musician's lyrics. A cop takes issue with the portrayal of law enforcement in "Highway Patrolman"; a grandmother is moved to tears by the love song "If I Should Fall Behind"; an affluent pre-med student is carried back to the Depression by "The Ghost of Tom Joad." Plainspoken and poignant, their uplifting comments continuously circle the bedrock issues of family, community, and work.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)