The Red Album of Asbury Park — Alex Austin

It's the late Sixties, the Beatles intact, Jimi Hendrix exploding and the Doors demanding the world. And on the East Coast, Asbury Park, New Jersey, will become the epicenter of a new brand of rock and roll. But in January 1968, a boardwalk Liverpool lies in the future. Racial tensions, escalating crime and a fading reputation as a first-class resort have shaken the City by the Sea. Asbury is at tipping point. Cast down into the resort on a winter night, Sam Nesbitt, 22, arrives broke and homeless, but filled with musical ambition. Seeking shelter, he boards a floating wooden swan ride, one of the seaside resort's numerous offbeat attractions abandoned in winter. Drifting into an intoxicating dream of a rock 'n' roll future, Sam is nettled from his fantasy of fame and regained love by men's voices rising outside the swan, discussing Jersey arcana ... and murder. To the backbeat of a brutal struggle to control a dying and increasingly surreal town, Sam pursues a vision at once heroic and carnal, self-destructive and soul affirming.