BY VINCENT TODARO
Staff Writer
EAST BRUNSWICK – For Michael Chichetti, Route 18 represents more than traffic jams and strip malls.
In fact, the 25-year-old township resident sees the highway as a central point in a community where people grow up, get jobs and either settle down or move on. And still others stay put for lack of a plan or mechanism for achieving their dreams of a different life.
The East Brunswick corridor is also the backdrop of Chichetti’s new book, “Along Route 18,” a fictional account of characters based largely around the author’s own friends and experiences.
Chichetti, who used the pen name Michael Brooklyn, after the place of his birth, noted that all the events in the book take place along Route 18, including the Olive Garden and the International House of Pancakes. The thinly veiled local references will be apparent to anyone who’s spent a lot of time in traffic on Route 18.
Like other writers such as Bruce Springsteen, Chichetti managed to find inspiration on the highway, with a plot that revolves around the characters who live, work and hang out there. The novel is based around a rather confused character named Ashton Kristopher, an inspiring, yet unmotivated 20-something who is looking to find his way in the world.
Like Chichetti, Ashton is an aspiring screenwriter, but the author did not base Ashton on himself.
“The main character is based on my friend,” he said. “All of his quirks and things he does in real life.”
Luckily for Chichetti, his friend approved of the portrayal.
Ashton “is stuck in a dead-end job and doesn’t quite have the motivation he wishes he had,” Chichetti said.
The character is asking himself typical questions for someone in his position, such as where his future is headed and what he can do to get out of his situation. He works at a drug store, but in the back on the loading dock.
“He doesn’t like the long hours or his boss,” Chichetti said.
Ashton just can’t get his screenwriting career on track.
“He can’t come up with ideas at the right moment or finish anything,” Chichetti said.
Ashton isn’t alone, however; he’s going through the experience with the help of his old high school friends, Mike Palombi and Amir Weisbrot, with whom he spends his off time. The characters are based on two other friends.
Mike and Amir are polar opposites. Mike is the “overachiever,” very business-like and success-driven, Chichetti noted, while Amir could care less.
“He is very laissez-faire, and all play,” Chichetti said. “He’s like a big 12-year-old. He spends all his time playing video games.”
His friends read the book before it came out, and OK’d Chichetti’s portrayals of them. They had warned him to not make them look “too bad,” he said, quipping that they also wanted to be sure he did not kill them off at the end.
In general terms, the story is largely centered on the character making, or trying to make, the transition from childhood to full adulthood, he said.
“They’re trying to grow up and be mature,” he said.
Chichetti said “Along Route 18,” which is written in screenplay format, is sort of a “spoof of romantic comedies.”
The romance comes along when Ashton meets Melissa, the love of his life. But Ashton finds out something about Melissa that he doesn’t like, and the two split up. That’s when the comedy of errors begins, as Ashton goes to great lengths to try to win her back, confessing his love for her in public, atop a Hummer and wearing his Halloween costume.
Chichetti didn’t want to give away the ending, but you can find it out by purchasing the book, which is available at www.bbotw.com, amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com and bordersstores.com for $11.95 in soft cover. The 104-page novel, Chichetti’s first to be released, is published by Infinity Publishing, of Pennsylvania.
Chichetti, a graduate of East Brunswick High School who currently works at a local bakery, said he finds it easier to write using the screenplay style.
He chose the pen name in order “to add a little mystery” and also to keep in the tradition of great writers like Mark Twain.