Palisades Park A Novel
Palisades Park A Novel by Alan Brennert, published by St. Martin’s Publishing Group on October 29, 2013, is a 448-page work that immerses readers in the vibrant world of a family navigating life in the legendary Palisades Amusement Park in New Jersey during the 1930s. The story centers on seven-year-old Antoinette, affectionately known as Toni, and her brother Jack, as they assist their parents at a food stand amidst the park’s attractions. The narrative unfolds against the backdrop of significant historical events, including the Great Depression and World War II, which impact the family’s dreams and aspirations.
Readers will find a richly woven tale that explores the complexities of family dynamics and individual ambitions, as Toni aspires to become a high diver despite societal expectations. The novel delves into themes of resilience and the pursuit of dreams, even in the face of adversity, as the characters confront challenges such as war, personal ambitions, and the eventual closure of the park in 1971. With its historical context and emotional depth, Palisades Park offers a poignant reflection on a bygone era, capturing the essence of a time when life was both enchanting and fraught with difficulties.
Official synopsis Publisher
Bestseller Alan Brennert’s spellbinding story about a family of dreamers and their lives within the legendary Palisades Amusement Park
Growing up in the 1930s, there is no more magical place than Palisades Amusement Park in New Jersey—especially for seven-year-old Antoinette, who horrifies her mother by insisting on the unladylike nickname Toni, and her brother, Jack. Toni helps her parents, Eddie and Adele Stopka, at the stand where they sell homemade French fries amid the roar of the Cyclone roller coaster. There is also the lure of the world’s biggest salt-water pool, complete with divers whose astonishing stunts inspire Toni, despite her mother’s insistence that girls can’t be high divers.
But a family of dreamers doesn’t always share the same dreams, and then the world intrudes: There’s the Great Depression, and Pearl Harbor, which hits home in ways that will split the family apart; and perils like fire and race riots in the park. Both Eddie and Jack face the dangers of war, while Adele has ambitions of her own—and Toni is determined to take on a very different kind of danger in impossible feats as a high diver. Yet they are all drawn back to each other—and to Palisades Park—until the park closes forever in 1971.
Evocative and moving, with the trademark brilliance at transforming historical events into irresistible fiction that made Alan Brennert’s Moloka’i and Honolulu into reading group favorites, Palisades Park takes us back to a time when life seemed simpler—except, of course, it wasn’t.
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