A second novel by the author of The Odd Sea chronicles the trials and tribulations of teenage life and love in suburban New Jersey as he follows the relationship between Anthony Rubin, a young Jewish teen whose own family is falling apart, and his neighbor, Juliette, the daughter of a reputed Mafioso. 35,000 first printing. In Frederick Reiken's first novel, The Odd Sea , a family grappled with an almost unreal dilemma: the unsolved disappearance of a son. His second effort, The Lost Legends of New Jersey , is also a family saga. But this time the focus--the suburban dissolution of the Rubin clan--is more mundane, and the novel's casual eye toward chronology keeps the plot from accumulating much in the way of momentum. Indeed, the only way young Anthony Rubin can make sense of his experience is to give it a legendary spin: He was always doing that, making things up, trying to see how it all might fit into a legend. He didn't understand why he did this, because New Jersey was not a legend. It was the armpit of America, according to most people. Still he saw everything around him as a legend. Anthony, of course, has plenty to contend with. His father, Michael, is a none-too-subtle (if goodhearted) adulterer. His mother, Jess, is prone to breakdowns and would rather be underwater at any given moment than with her children. His best friend, Jay, drifts away when Michael's smoldering affair with Jay's mother begins to disrupt the Rubin marriage. And the alluring girl next door, the brash daughter of a high-stakes gambler, seems always just out of reach. Reiken's style remains unblinking and direct throughout, suggesting that there are no good guys or bad guys in Livingston, New Jersey--just complex, tangible people who remind us what it is to be human. And while Anthony's losses may feel devastating, or even legendary, he knows that they are ultimately survivable. "It's always strange to me that all this is so comforting," he says. "And yet it is." --Brangien Davis Coming of age in 1970s New Jersey, teenager Anthony Rubin channels his energy into his hockey team rather than dwell on his absent mother or the seemingly uncontrollable (though not unmourned) loss of his best friend and next-door neighbor, Jay. An extramarital affair between Jay's mother and Anthony's father has caused tension between the two families, and as Jay drifts away, Anthony's tightly strung mother is sent into a tailspin, flight, and a strained, long-distance motherhood. To this emotional turmoil, Reiken, whose debut novel, The Odd Sea, won the Hackney Literary Award, adds Anthony's crush on the tough-talking daughter of the touted neighborhood Mafioso. A guy never had a more harrowing sophomore year. The author fashions a hero in resilient Anthony, to whom the reader's heart goes out with the clear understanding that it will be in good hands. Recommended for popular fiction collections. -DMargee Smith, Grace A. Dow Memorial Lib., Midland, MI Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. Reiken's second novel merges the ordinary and the mythological in the suburbs of New Jersey. The young hero, Anthony Rubin, is surrounded by people looking for love. His father, unable to connect with his aloof, confused wife, has an affair with the mother of one of Anthony's close friends. His grandfather, who lives in a nursing home, is overjoyed to discover his true love at the age of 78. Anthony himself thinks Juliette Dimiglio, his tough, standoffish neighbor, might be the one for him, but she's dating a crass high-school football star. That doesn't stop Anthony and Juliette from being attracted to each other and eventually beginning to secretly date. But does their relationship, which is a mixture of the legendary, doomed romances of literature--Romeo and Juliet, Lancelot and Guinevere--have a chance to survive? Reiken's novel brilliantly presents new twists on the stories that have become literary myths--Morgan le Fay becomes a truck driver, Avalon a misty graveyard of dead instruments. Reiken seamlessly combines stark realism with fantasy in this exceptional tale of love and loss. Kristine Huntley Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved The gentle empathy for the intricate muddle of family and romantic relationships that distinguished Reiken's accomplished debut, The Odd Sea (1998), is also a dominant feature of this considerably more ambitious successor.The story, a plaintive demonstration of the truism that we all lose things. That loving someone means having to bear the pain of separation, is set in northern New Jersey (Livingston) and Florida in the late 1970s and afterward, and in the minds and memories of its several major characters. Foremost is Anthony Rubin, a high-school hockey star and a hopeful romantic who believes he'll somehow liberate sexpot Juliette Dimiglio (daughter of a minor gangster besieged by loan sharks) from her oafish boyfriend, and reconcile his adulterous father Michael and unstable mo