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Review Excerpts
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USA Today – February 4, 2008
“Langer has that rare combination of fierce intelligence, wicked wit
and the ability to make you turn the pages at wrist-splintering
speed. This is one of the very best recent novels of New York – one
that skewers not only real estate, but the magazine and publishing
worlds, the Ivy League and the theater scene...Langer sees through
the pomposity, ambition and ridiculousness of his characters but
loves them anyway... A sprawling social satire so deft that Langer
even pulls off chapters from the perspective of Ike's dog.”
-- David Daley |
Chicago Tribune – February 2, 2008
“Ellington Boulevard proves that this gifted satirist and
storyteller can move with ease from city to city and character to
character…Most good drama derives from... moments of transition, and
this ‘Novel in A-Flat’ proves the point in abundance. One can
quibble about how to identify Ellington Boulevard – 21st Century
novel of manners or narrative musical – but Adam Langer leaves
little doubt that he is a rarity among contemporary writers: a
keen-edged satirist who at the same time is too fond of his
characters to dismiss them. Sometimes even fools and sinners deserve
a happy ending.”
-- Porter Shreve |
New York Post– January 27, 2008
“[A] glorious comedy of gentrification, rent control and love.
Langer's witty novel is an ode to a gritty stretch of real estate on
the Upper West Side. Langer excels at digging into the nitty gritty
of his setting... Like all musicals, there are the lead characters'
trials and cliffhangers...Langer is gleeful in using the plot tools
of chance, coincidence and happy endings that were the backbone of
old Broadway musicals.”
-- Dylan Foley |
New York Times Book Review– January 27, 2008
“A mosaic depicting the love lives and housing destinies of 10 major
characters… Langer arranges these daisy chains and six-degrees
diversions with finesse. Ellington Boulevard doesn’t try to carry
its musical-theater conceit very far in formal terms, but the
frequent breadth of its characterizations and the occasional depth
of its sappiness bespeak a certain drama-geek quality. At its core…
Ellington Boulevard possesses a streetwise sentimentality that feels
authentic.”
-- Troy Patterson |
St. Louis Post-Dispatch – January 27, 2008
“Clever… Inventive, funny and touching... The story evolves like a
complicated jazz piece, riffing on various situations and featuring
characters that Langer labels by their function in the tale...Their
web of interrelationships deepens as the novel progresses, giving
"Ellington Boulevard" a texture that makes it a pleasure to read.
But the real joy comes from the humor that Langer injects into
almost every page. Along with the real-estate market, Langer also
spoofs other aspects of life that are uniquely New York: musical
theater, academic life at Columbia and, of course, the magazine
culture... It's all a delight, ingeniously plotted and expertly
written.”
-- Dale Singer |
New York Daily News – January 26, 2008
“Wacky and wonderful… In this quintessentially New York tale...the
sale of Apt. 2B at 64 W. 106th St. becomes just one chapter in the
life of ‘The Tenant,’ which is interwoven with that of ‘The Buyer’…
‘The Buyer's Husband’… ‘The Broker’… ‘The Seller’… and a chorus of
neighbors, bosses, therapists, ex-wives and fellow dreamers.
Together, they make Ellington Boulevard a nice place for a reader to
visit and show us the Big Apple is a small world - or maybe a
‘handyman's special’ with no space but great potential.”
-- Jane H. Furse |
Time Out New York – January 24, 2008
“In Ellington Boulevard, Adam Langer’s incredibly light third novel,
the gentrifying Upper West Side provides a complex and ideal
backdrop for a la ronde involving a musician on the verge of
eviction, his rescued dog, the people who are buying his apartment,
a family of pigeons and an editor at The American Standard who has a
secret past. There is… an unexpected charm in the way Langer
choreographs these people’s destinies. Like the musical adaptation
that punctuates the narrative, Ellington Boulevard doesn’t aspire to
do more than entertain—and with numbers like ‘Will You Love Me When
the Boom Is Over?,’ it certainly does.”
-- Ken Foster |
Houston Chronicle – January 24, 2008
“Langer's imagination is linked to cities. Ellington Boulevard,
which is Realtor-speak for West 106th Street, embraces New York. The
story, which features a Broadway-musical-size cast of characters,
centers on the sale of a modest apartment in a rapidly gentrifying
area of the Upper West Side. At its best, the novel matches
[protagonist] Rebecca's vision of Eighth Avenue: ‘positively pulsing
with life.’ Taking his cue from the jazz master who gives his name
to both the book and the street that is its main ‘stage,’ Langer
riffs deliciously on everything from academic pretentiousness to
fashions in dog-naming. Langer's narrative skills are admirable.”
-- Robert Cremins |
Velocity Week – January 23, 2008
“Adam Langer's third novel is a tour de force revolving around one
Manhattan apartment, and all the lives that change in the course of
its sale – including a jazz musician, a real estate agent who'd
rather be an actor and the most irritating graduate student ever.
The pages can't turn fast enough.” |
Los Angeles Times CalendarLive – January 20, 2008
“Langer keeps the action hopping, with characters popping out of
this door, hurtling through that window. His enthusiasm never
flags... Where Langer is at his best is in forgiving his characters
their failures and frailties. His heroes win out in the end, but his
villains lose little. Langer consigns none of them to anything worse
than this or that small, private purgatory, which usually turns out
to be a more comfortable fit than the demanding world of their
dreams.”
-- Carol Anshaw |
New York Observer – January 17, 2008
“In Adam Langer’s Ellington Boulevard, a cast of thrillingly
nuanced characters spin around one another in pursuit of happiness,
love and, above all, real estate. Through the hazy layers of
pomo-lite and the crowd of antic characters, Mr. Langer is telling a
story about how the city, and the people who live here, change. And
whether 2B is the apartment of a bohemian jazzman or a yuppie
couple, it’s still home for someone. ‘Whereas Chicago seemed be to
all steady 4/4 time,’ Ike thinks, ‘in New York, the meter was
constantly shifting.’ Here, it’s hip-hop fused with easy listening,
and it sure sounds good.”
-- Adam Rathe |
Tucson Citizen – January 17, 2008
“Langer has written a hysterical romp through Manhattan that is set
during the recent real estate boom. This nifty little book does for
the Big Apple what Crossing California did for Chicago as it serves
up a side-splitting buffet of funny stories revolving around a
regular two-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side. Langer offers
an intimate insight on just what it is that compels so many to
choose to live in New York, a city of exorbitant rents, untenable
living conditions, and ultimately, thrills and spills around every
corner.” |
Dame Magazine – January 10, 2008
“Crossing California author Adam Langer really ought to be a
national treasure. His sentences surprise you like star bursts and
he has the ability to inhabit not just his characters, but even
their dogs. This jubilant new book, about the battle over a tiny
Manhattan apartment, is really about the beating heart of marriages,
the way desire (for people and for things) flickers and flames, and
it's also a Valentine to a majestic city. Smart, funny and downright
irresistible.”
-- Caroline Leavitt |
St. Petersburg Times – January 6, 2008
“New York City is a town of revised dreams, where idealists come
with dreams of fame and fortune and either become the hunched
shoulders on which the Big Apple stands, or move on to other,
revised lives, for better or for worse. Langer writes beautifully
about the city and how it is stunning and crushing at the same time.
But Ellington Boulevard isn't all bleak, because sometimes
that revised dream is a better fit. What kind of musical would end
on a depressing note?”
-- Jen A. Miller |
Publishers Weekly – October 3, 2007
“An apartment on West 106th Street (aka Ellington Boulevard)
links a disparate group of New Yorkers in this intricate tale of
life, love and real estate. Langer (Crossing California; The
Washington Story) takes his time in developing the characters
and the depths of their interconnectedness, rendering the twists,
doubts and heartbreaks that afflict the milieu highly affecting. For
readers who turn first on Sunday morning to the real estate section,
it doesn’t get much better.” |
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