Freehold veterans’ stories honored in author’s latest

Freehold veterans’ stories
honored in author’s latest
Kevin Coyne will
discuss new book

Kevin Coyne

at Barnes & Noble

By clare marie celano

Staff Writer

FREEHOLD — Borough author Kevin Coyne always wanted to write a book about his hometown of Freehold.

Marching Home — To War and Back With the Men of One American Town is the result of that desire.

Coyne, who has authored two previous books, A Day in the Night of America and Domers: A Year at Notre Dame, will appear at Barnes & Noble, Route 9, Freehold Town-ship, on Feb. 20 at 7:30 p.m. to discuss his new book, which he said is the "nonfiction story of my hometown."

Coyne presently serves his hometown as a borough councilman and as the community’s historian.

Marching Home is the "story of a war — of World War II and of the reverberations that war had for decades to come on the small town of Freehold," according to a press release from publisher Viking Press. In the book, Coyne tells the story of six young men from Freehold who went off to war.

According to the press release, the men went "to the Pacific, to Europe, to England — to fight on air, on land and on sea."

In the first half of the book, Coyne follows the six men to war and vividly captures their wartime lives and the battles they fought. The second half follows their lives as they make their way home "to confront the world that Freehold and America would now become," according to the press release.

"I always wanted to write a book about Freehold," Coyne said, "but I needed to figure out a way to make America want to read it."

Coyne said he didn’t want to write a book that would only appeal to a local audience, but one that would reach a population that would see "the larger picture."

"My family has been in Freehold since before the Civil War," the author explained. "Freehold really is a very accurate microcosm of America. What makes is different from many other small towns has always been its racial diversity.

"It was a colonial town, it was a farm town, it was a factory town," Coyne explained. "All the threads of these things came together in this place. Freehold may not be the only small town in America, but it is a representative town in America."

In asking himself how he would tell the story of his town, Coyne referred to similarities between Marching Home and native son Bruce Springsteen’s song "My Hometown."

"Bruce set the story to music and made the rest of the world come to know our town," he explained. "I’ve told the story with words."

Publishers Weekly said Marching Home is "head and shoulders above much of the near competition, with graceful storytelling and enough social commentary to appeal to fans of Studs Terkel."

Coyne teaches at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, New York, and is also a contributing editor for New Jersey Monthly magazine.

The book has been selected by Barnes & Noble for special promotion in its Great New Writers program.

"Normally, most books have the shelf life of yogurt," Coyne said with good-natured humor. "Being featured in their special section guarantees at least three or four months of exposure."

Five of the six men featured in the book — Stu Bunton, Warren (Jake) Errickson, Jim Higgins, Bigerton (Buddy) Lewis and Bill Lopatin — are expected to join Coyne at Barnes & Noble. One of the six veterans featured in the book, Walter Denise, died two years ago, just six weeks after the book was completed.

"He did get to read the manuscript, and he was its most ardent champion," Coyne said quietly. "He really would have loved all this."