New & Current Releases
Archives: A-Z By Title
Archives: A-Z By Author
Advanced Search

All-Time High Scores
Best Of 2006
Best Of 2005
Best Of 2004
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Books In Our Forums

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed books.

Crossing California
A Novel
by Adam Langer


9.0

based on 12 reviews
read critic reviews
how did we calculate this?

based on 3 votes
read user comments
rate this book

Compare prices at pricegrabber.com

Buy it at powells.com

Buy it at amazon.com

Buy it at amazon.co.uk

Official Publisher Site

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]

Riverhead Books, 448 pages
06/03/2004
$24.95

ISBN: 1573222747

Fiction
General Literature & Fiction

All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...

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]

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.

Entertainment Weekly Jessica Shaw

In his ambitious, irresistible debut, Langer packs in more hilarious and agonizing moments than most writers manage in a lifetime.

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.

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.

Publishers Weekly

Chicago produces a mix of intellectualism and naturalism like no other city, and Langer has obviously fed on that.

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.

Christian Science Monitor Ron Charles

Brutally funny...What might exclude some readers, however, is the novel's sexual content.

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]

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.

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.

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.

The average user rating for this book is 9.0 (out of 10) based on 3 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Michael C gave it a9:
Although the novel is perhaps a bit esoterically seventies-ish Jewish and Rogers Park-ish, cognescenti of the epochal, cultural and geographical touchstones of Langer's novel will find the book utterly charming--if they can take time out from playing "Oh, I know that place/person/situation."

the car gave it a9:
i thought the book was hilarious. it nails the trivialities and inane details that end up consuming so much of one's life. well written and consuming. i hated for it to end.

Discuss this book in our forums

Return to top of page

Crossing California A Novel by Adam Langer

Crossing California
A Novel
by Adam Langer