The Seventies, Before New Jersey Was New Jersey

“Harlan Coben, the best-selling thriller writer, was 9 years old, another Newark refugee in Livingston, when he met Christie on a Little League field, the future governor a chunky kid in a catcher’s get-up coming toward him, saying his full name: Harlan Coben — Hi, I’m Chris Christie. ‘What 9-year-old does that?’ Coben said to me 42 years later. New Jersey then was barely the Jersey we know now, but by the time Christie was a teenager and a Bruce Springsteen fan of extreme emotion and attachment, the persona of the state was beginning to take hold.”