Crossing California by Adam Langer is a book that I’ve been plowing through for a good long time. It’s taken me longer than expected because the book is massive, with over 400 pages and small print, not too unlike the average lengthy novel, but I guess I got lazy along the reading of this book somewhere, somehow.

The book is well written, easy to access, and uses simple grammar and intelligence to formulate a story that has the 1970’s as the backdrop. The book talks about three different families, living in separate neighborhoods, each with their own set of troubles, and each with their own finesse and intertwined sub plots.

At first glance this book has a lot of syntax that relies on Jewish tradition and growing up with that as a focal point of the kids lives. However, the author nicely juxtaposes secular and religious with such a careful balance that you don’t really feel that you’re being led into an intellectual battle of wits.

Crossing California had me bored at one point, and I didn’t know how to really breathe life into this book, and although I finished it, it was a slow process, with too much going on. The writer seems to have spread out the plot through so many peculiar meetings, and interesting interactions that it kept me going through to the end, but it definitely became stale at many key points.

Check it out, it’s worth a read, although, not for everyone.

Here is what wikipedia says about the synopsis:

“In Chicago’s West Rogers Park neighborhood in 1979, California Avenue divides the prosperous west side from the struggling east. Langer’s brilliant debut uses that divide as a metaphor for the changes that occur in the lives of three neighborhood families: the Rovners, the Wasserstroms and the Wills. There are two macro-stories-the courtship of Charlie Wasserstrom and Gail Shiffler-Bass, and the alienation of Jill Wasserstrom from her best friend, Muley Wills-but what really counts here is the exuberance of overlapping subplots. One pole of the book is represented by Ellen Rovner, a therapist whose marriage to Michael dissolves over the course of the book (much to Ellen’s relief: she’s so distrustful of Michael that she fakes not having an orgasm when they make love). If Ellen embodies cool, intelligent disenchantment, her son, Larry, represents the opposite pole of pure self-centeredness. As Larry sees it, his choice is between becoming a rock star with his band, Rovner!, and getting a lot of sex-or going to Brandeis, becoming successful and getting a lot of sex. The east side Wasserstrom girls exist between these poles: Michelle, the eldest, is rather slutty, flighty and egotistical, but somehow raises her schemes (remaining the high school drama club queen, for instance) to a higher level, while Jill, a seventh-grade contrarian who shocks her Hebrew School teachers with defenses of Ayatollah Khomeini and quotes Nkrumah at her bat mitvah, is still emotionally dazed from her mother’s death. Muley, who woos Jill with his little films, wins the heart of the reader, if not of his intended.”

I’ve definitely read better, but hey…what are you gonna do? I am glad to be moving on, but that doesn’t mean you might not love this book. It does have a lot of heart, and there’s enough rich character development to keep you entertained, even if I found a few stale moments.

I recommend this book if you’re looking for something different. This is more of a dramatic tale than it is anything that I am accustomed to reading. From a sociological standpoint, I really liked the era in which the story takes place, and really liked how the author didn’t leave things to generic minutia, but rather chose to refer to specific examples of the era, while not completely disjointing me from the story line.