Rutgers University Press Blog

Stanley Crouch reviews Backstory in Blue in Harper's Magazine

"What makes John Fass Morton's Backstory in Blue so impressive is the way he handles the tensions and releases of that blue containment tale while bringing human complexity to the fore. We feel the flesh-and-blood qualities of the characters who made the story intimate, secret, public, intricate, casual, and even slightly mysterious. Morton reveals many things that others have missed, and his book could inspire those in our firmly segregated literary world where almost all of our fiction fails to bring artistry and the sort of sweep expected in the best nineteenth-century European novels and short stories. Page by page this book makes its way to great importance by showing that one should not be spooked by the range and complications of humanity that appear across the classes, the races, the religions, the professions, and the causes that usually drive great public events in our nation. In all, Backstory in Blue gives us a startlingly pure rendition of the private, public, domestic, and international significance of the American community in what may be an era that will more perfectly realize the deeper meanings of why the new president of the United States proudly calls himself a mutt."
--Stanley Crouch, Harper's Magazine

The June 2009 issue of Harper's Magazine is on newsstands now.

Greetings from Springsteenland, Sweden

Anders Martensson
Hassleholm, Sweden
April 2009

Another year, another tour. These are exciting times, and it’s an amazing fact that no matter how many shows Bruce Springsteen has played with or without The E Street Band over the last few years he keeps selling out Scandinavian Stadiums. In Sweden we call ourselves the lucky ones given the fact that Springsteen’s management decided to schedule three June shows at the Olympic Stadium in Stockholm. A total of 90,000 tickets went on sale at 10 a.m on January 27, and even though internet sales suffered a major breakdown it was all over by noon. 

We are, as always, thrilled to have The E Street Band playing Gothenburg or Stockholm. But considering what’s been going on at rehearsal shows in Asbury Park, die hard fans haven't been convinced that they are in for the same treats as during the final leg of last years’ “Magic” tour. That’s why Springsteen doing the usual odd cover (“Good Rockin' Tonight”) and picking up request signs again (“Growin’ Up”) at last week’s San Jose-premiere are very, very good news. 

The new record has its share of great moments, songs that definitely deserve to become tour standards, but what defines an unforgettable Springsteen show are those moments of thrilling obscurity. Seriously, the time has come to retire “Lonesome Day”, “No Surrender”, and “Waiting on a Sunny Day”. Instead, we need the wild cards, the early stuff written by a kid struggling on the central Jersey club scene, and we’re desperate for some rarely played masterpieces of the “Darkness”/“River”-era: “Factory”, “Streets of Fire", “Fade Away”, “The Price You Pay”. 

Anyway, The E Street Band remains a great never-ending story and while Mr. Springsteen keeps working on his dream Jorgen Johansson and I will be working on ours. Jorgen took all the beautiful photographs for our 2008 Rutgers UP release “Local Heroes: The Asbury Park Music Scene”, and right now he’s finishing up work on the first “Local Heroes”-themed photo exhibit. This summer Jorgen will show his work in our hometown, Hassleholm, Sweden, and I’m guessing it won’t be long before he takes the show on the road. It’s even a pretty good chance it’ll reach the Jersey Shore in the near future. That’ll be cool. Just imagine a number of famed E Streeters along with assorted local heroes like the late great Danny Gallagher looking down from the inner walls of a building on Kingsley Street, Cookman Avenue or Ocean Avenue in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Where it all began.