The Washington Story
by Adam Langer
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Book Summary Information
Author: Adam LangerEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-08-18
ISBN: 1573223247
Number of pages: 416
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover
Book Reviews of The Washington Story
Book Review: From Kirkus Reviews
Summary: 5 Stars
The kids who filled the pages of Langer's debut, Crossing California (2004), with their passions, idiocies and dreams are leaving high school and stepping into the world. This second installment of their story is set during the Reagan years (1982-87). While the Iran hostage crisis served as a touchstone in Crossing California, here it's the election of Chicago's first black mayor, Harold Washington. The style is still obsessively catalog-like, page after page laying out the Chicago terrain in exhaustive detail. You could practically draw a map of the city after reading this book, not to mention know what movies were showing at the time and what music was on the radio (on what stations, even). As in Crossing California, Langer appends a glossary of terms relevant to the time period. ("Genug," by the way, is Yiddish for "enough," and "Garfield," if you don't already know, is a "cartoon cat created by Jim Davis; ubiquitous in college dorm rooms circa 1984.") Characters, of course, are what matter here most. The battling Wasserstrom sisters, Michelle and Jill, have left Chicago for NYU and Vassar, to work toward careers in acting and politics, respectively, and the quiet genius Muley Willis (the true hero of both books) attends art school in Chicago, where he develops self-destructing art installations. Meanwhile, angry rich kid Wes Sullivan vies with Muley for Jill's affections, and a pair of mismatched impresarios try to kick-start the local film industry, with a disastrous gangster flick, Godfathers of Soul. Although the novel's scope has widened to include Florida, the East Coast and even Germany, the wind-swept streets of Chicago remain at its center. 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.
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