American Lonesome: The Work of Bruce Springsteen begins with a visit
to the Jersey Shore and ends with a meditation on the international
legacy of Springsteen's writing, music, and performances. Gavin
Cologne-Brookes's innovative study of this popular musician and his
position in American culture blends scholarship with personal
reflection, providing both an academic examination of Springsteen's work
and a moving account of how it offers a way out of emotional solitude
and the potential lonesomeness of modern life.
Cologne-Brookes proposes that the American philosophical tradition of
pragmatism, which assesses the value of ideas and arguments based on
their practical applications, provides a lens for understanding the
diversity of perspectives and emotions encountered in Springsteen's
songs and performances. Drawing on pragmatist philosophy from William
James to Richard Rorty, Cologne-Brookes examines Springsteen's formative
environment and outsider psychology, arguing that the artist's confessed
tendency toward a self-reliant isolation creates a tension in his work
between lonesomeness and community. He considers Springsteen's
portrayals of solitude in relation to classic and contemporary American
writers, from Frederick Douglass, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Emily
Dickinson to Richard Wright, Flannery O'Connor, and Joyce Carol Oates.
As part of this critique, he discusses the difference between escapist
and pragmatic romanticism, the notion of multiple selves as played out
both in Springsteen's work and in our perception of him, and the impact
of performances both recorded and live. By drawing on his own
experiences seeing Springsteen perform--including on tours showcasing
the album The River in 1981 and 2016--Cologne-Brookes creates a book
about the intimate relationship between art and everyday life.
Blending research, cultural knowledge, and creative thinking, American
Lonesome dissolves any imagined barriers between the study of a
songwriter, literary criticism, and personal testimony.
