Shore Stories

The New Jersey Shore is one of the nation’s most familiar stretches of sand, and it attracts millions of visitors — including some of the nation’s finest writers. Shore Stories takes the reader on a literary journey along this coast — from Sandy Hook to Long Beach Island, Ocean City to Wildwood, to all the familiar shore towns, beaches, boardwalks and bays; to the old and the new Atlantic City and to Victorian Cape May. These are places dear to the hearts of millions for whom summer at the Jersey Shore is a tradition.

Shore Stories is the first book to capture in depth the diversity and the emotions attached to this beloved stretch of coastline. More than forty short stories, essays and poems, along with 47 photographs in seven galleries, chronicle this renowned region. The forty-four contributors include nationally celebrated authors (John McPhee, Gay Talese, and Robert Pinksy, among others) as well as talented regional writers whose work promises future acclaim.

This book is a great summer beach read. But it is also a book that transplants one to the Jersey Shore, in any season, whether the reader is in the suburbs or the city or on another coast time zones away. And it serves as a cultural reference and resource.

REVIEWS

“It is hard to imagine a reader who will not find something to delight in, and that pleaure will not be restricted to those familiar with the Jersey Shore.”

—The Trenton Times

“This book is a capsule of our lives on the Shore over the years of our now-fading century ... Savor this handsome volume of new and old prose and poetry that treats the Jersey Shore from Sandy Hook to Cape May.”

— The Star-Ledger

“A wonderfully evocative assortment of fiction, essays, poems and photographs... Shore Stories is a good book for reading at the beach. It’s an even better book to take home with you, along with the sand on the car floor and the seashells in your pocket, as a wonderful reminder of a wondrous place — the shore”

— The Beachcomber, Long Beach Island

EXCERPTS

The following excerpt is from
The Finished Sound, by Sandy Gingras
Copyright © 1998 Down The Shore Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

Edgar lives in an apartment on Long Beach Island overlooking Mr. Cee’s Putt-Putt Golf. Mr. Cee never oils his moving obstacles so they all squeak and groan. It makes me crazy when I go over there — especially that yellow clown that keeps putting his foot down and raising it.

When Edgar first moved in, he was annoyed by the whir of the little windmill, the raucous bells when somebody won a free game, all the people bending and putting, bending and putting, as if there was nothing better to do. But now he’s grown to love the sound of golf balls falling into holes. “It’s a nice finished sound,” he tells me. We’re in my bayside apartment, and I know what he’s getting at.

I close my eyes and sigh. I’m thirty-five — too old for this. I can’t say, “I don’t know. I can’t figure things out. I’m not ready yet,” anymore. Edgar wants me to move in with him. More than that, he’s ready to cash in his E bond and buy me a ring.

I go in the bedroom and fake sleep. I listen to his steps approaching, the splashing noises in the bathroom, the slide of his clothes, the click of the light. He gets into the bed carefully and lies still in his own indentation. I think of a boy making an angel in the snow and forgetting to make the wings. My body leans toward his.

The next day at work at the newspaper, I have to keep taking breaks. I’m the news editor, and it’s gotten so that I wish every story was just a paragraph, or even just one sentence. I can’t stand all the stuff about he said, she said, all the nuance and complexity that got me into this business in the first place. Now I cross it all out. “Get to the point,” I keep telling the reporters. Today there are red slashes all over the stories I’ve been reading; there’s almost nothing left of them. I know I can’t go on this way.

I call two of my married friends. I ask them how they decided to get married. Both of the stories involve wine. I write down on my “To Do” list: Wine — Red?

CONTINUED