Greetings from Bury Park: Race. Religion. Rock 'n' Roll

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The movie was "inspired by" this memoir written by that geeky boy, the title a play on words based on the small town north of London where Sarfraz Manzoor grew up and Springsteen's New Jersey home town and early album title. So having seen the fictional version I had to read the true story, and it has the same emotional impact as the movie based on both the power of the music and the love song Manzoor has written to his father. In the book, as in the movie, as in Springsteen's love song "Independence Day" to his troubled relationship with his father, the relationship between father and son was dominated by anger, misunderstanding, miscommunication, unfulfilled expectations and unexpressed expectations. But the song only gains lyrics later as the son grows to realize that the disappointments and disconnections flowed in both directions and the song becomes a love song to that father.

Greetings from Bury Park by Sarfraz Manzoor: 9780307388025

My father had an official birthdate but I do not know when he was born. Officially Mohammed Manzoor was born on 1 April 1933. The month of his birth was almost certainly incorrect but the actual year was also possibly wrong. The lives of villagers living in rural India in the thirties were not considered important enough to be recorded with much detail or accuracy. Yet the comedy is marbled with genuine regret. The youthful Manzoor defines himself in opposition to his father. The possible resolution of this conflict - Sarfraz's success in the mistrusted world of the media - comes just too late; Mohammed Manzoor slipped from coma to death the very day his son's first professional assignment appeared in the Manchester Evening News. The opening chunk of this book thinks it's an exploration of difficult times and a tense relationship; in actuality it's a glowing, almost embarrassed tribute to a loving father who sacrificed everything to try and give his family a life better than that he'd known. It's simultaneously hugely personal and a set of feelings shared by the offspring of generations of such men who came to these shores from Ireland, eastern Europe and the subcontinent. 'His moral framework was underpinned by family, responsibility and pride.' As I read the memoir, I pictured many of my students from many different lands and cultures. The front quote on my copy of the text declares this a story of the immigrant experience. I also see it as the tale of the shaping of identity.

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a b "Happy 40th: Bruce Springsteen's 'Greetings From Asbury Park, New Jersey' ". CBS. 1973-07-05. Archived from the original on October 8, 2016 . Retrieved 2014-01-25.

Sarfraz Manzoor - Wikipedia Sarfraz Manzoor - Wikipedia

Manzoor's story will be familiar to migrants all over the world. . . . Luton is to London as Jersey City is to NYC: proletarian versus metropolitan, periphery versus centre, boredom versus cool. . . . Greetings from Bury Park successfully evokes not only a particular time and place, but, more importantly, a pervasive sense of marginality. . . . A very personal narrative of love, separation, loss and guilt.— The New Statesman Springsteen Tour Of Europe A Triumph Covering 10 Nations" (PDF). Billboard. June 20, 1981. p.73. ISSN 0006-2510 . Retrieved April 29, 2022. You don’t need to be a fan of America’s blue-collar poet — or a British Asian for that matter — to enjoy this deeply touching memoir. . . . One of the most honest depiction second-generation experience I have come across.”—Chitra Rawaswamy, Scotland on Sunday Quirky. . . . Brilliant. . . . Offers an interesting insight into the psyche of an avid fan.”— The Independent The title of Manzoor's affectionate memoir is, as any Springsteen fan will recognize, a play on that of the Boss's 1973 debut album, and it was the New Jersey songwriter's music to which the young Manzoor clung during a childhood in a strict Pakistani Muslim household in the Luton neighborhood of Bury Park. . . . Manzoor leaps clear of cliche by virtue of the story he has to tell, and the insight, compassion, humor and self-awareness with which he tells it. . . . Wonderful.”— The Sunday TimesA small wonder which reads like a melancholy refit of the Buddha of Suburbia, where boredom replaces bohemia and real life is only glimpsed in a Springsteen lyric. The result is a genuinely moving rite of passage in which pop music plays an essential and disposable role.”