A novel about two generations of family and friendship in Chicago from November 1979 through January 1981. In 1979 California Avenue, in Chicago's West Rogers Park neighborhood, separates the upper-middle-class Jewish families from the mostly middle-class Jewish residents on the east of the divide. This by turns funny and heartbreaking first novel tells the story of three families and their teenage children living on either side of California, following their loves, heartaches, and friendships during a memorable moment of American history. [Penguin Group]
Critic Reviews
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Outstanding
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Booklist Donna Seaman
Although Langer may have aimed for Philip Roth and landed, instead, beside David Sedaris, his novel is smart, affectionate, and uproariously entertaining. [15 May 2004, p.1597]
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Outstanding
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Chicago Sun-Times Roger Gathman
The book's hold on the reader is such, though, that we really don't want [the characters to move on]. Giving them up -- closing the book and breaking the spell -- is the worst part of this engrossing debut novel.
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Outstanding
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Entertainment Weekly Jessica Shaw
In his ambitious, irresistible debut, Langer packs in more hilarious and agonizing moments than most writers manage in a lifetime.
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Outstanding
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Kirkus Reviews
Langer's gift is for layering each page with an almost obsessive level of detail...without ever subsuming the characters, who shine brightly as they rocket into the 1980s.
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Outstanding
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Los Angeles Times Mark Razzo
Extraordinary... In this rich saga worthy of Philip Roth and Anthony Trollope, Langer has finally given us its definitive document.
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Outstanding
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Publishers Weekly
Chicago produces a mix of intellectualism and naturalism like no other city, and Langer has obviously fed on that.
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Outstanding
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San Francisco Chronicle Victoria Zackheim
Perhaps [Langer's] greatest achievement is his gift for presenting characters so vividly that we hear their distinct and wonderful voices, feel deeply their heartaches and desires. We grieve for their disappointments and celebrate their successes.
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Favorable
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Christian Science Monitor Ron Charles
Brutally funny...What might exclude some readers, however, is the novel's sexual content.
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Favorable
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Library Journal Robin Nesbitt
A humorous look at growing up in middle America, being Jewish, coping with divorce, having sex, and creating an identity, this novel should appeal to readers of contemporary Jewish fiction and light black humor. [15 Apr 2004, p.124]
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Mixed
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LA Weekly David L. Uliln
Crossing California never truly comes to life. It is, in other words, less a time capsule than a simulacrum, an imitation of its long-gone world.
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Mixed
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The New York Times Book Review Mark Kamine
The novel often feels forced and slack -- Langer has an unsteady hand on the rudder. He thoroughly and elaborately exposes the narrow goals and narcissistic motivations of his middle-class Midwestern characters. He now needs to find a more fluent method of bringing them to life.
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Unfavorable
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Washington Post John McNally
Instead of being engrossed in Langer's characters' lives, I am too often distracted by his presence and that of his fiction writer's toolbox. The result is a novel that, for all its potential warmth, is oddly chilly.
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