Synopses & Reviews
The irresistible follow-up to Adam Langer's debut hit,
Crossing California "the most vivid novel about Chicago since Saul Bellow's
Herzog and the most ambitious debut set in Chicago since Philip Roth's
Letting Go" (
Chicago Tribune).
More than a year and a half has passed since Jill Wasserstrom tried to catch up to Muley Wills in West Rogers Park. Now, they are high school students in love, but will their relationship survive as their world expands beyond the boundaries of West Rogers Park? Over the course of five years from 1982 to 1987 Jill, Muley, and their families and friends will experience love, betrayal, re-unions, sex, death, and rebirth. They will live through years of triumph and despair the deaths of Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, and Konstantin Chernenko and the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev; the death of the Chicago political machine and the rise and fall of Harold Washington; the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger and the arrival of Halley's Comet. They will travel from Chicago to Cape Canaveral, Florida, to New York, Europe, and beyond. And once again, Jill and Muley will find themselves on a street corner in a very different Chicago from the one they first knew.
Review
"One hopes that a third installment, taking us into the '90s, is not too far off. Another richly detailed and overstuffed novel, both joyful and heartbreaking." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"[Y]ou rarely feel that Langer's story is heading anywhere; it meanders, as if sniffing around for big ideas...." Washington Post
Review
"The Washington Story presents itself as a document preserving the memory of a specific time and place, but it's really an acute and sympathetic account of what it's like to be young anytime, anywhere." Los Angeles Times
Review
"Langer has produced a tender and generous book....A careful craftsman, Langer has woven in enough back story for the sequel to stand on its own merits." Chicago Tribune
Review
"The Washington Story may be set in Chicago, but in the end it's universally appealing, an insightful vision of our comical, sad, infuriating, wonderful lives." Miami Herald
Review
"Langer is more journalist than storyteller...and he captures this tiny, almost forgotten enclave of the city like a veteran documentary filmmaker." Chicago Sun-Times
Review
"Those who have not read the previous novel will find themselves at home by the end of Part 1. Recommended..." Library Journal
About the Author
Adam Langer has worked extensively as a print journalist, film producer, and playwright, and has been featured on NPR, CNN Headline News, Fox News, and E! Entertainment Television. Langer is a former senior editor of Book magazine and a recipient of a National Arts Journalism Fellowship at Columbia University.
Exclusive Essay
Read an exclusive essay by Adam Langer