Adam Langer

The Salinger Contract by Adam Langer

Years ago I read Crossing California, also by Adam Langer. It wasn’t a bad book, and I did enjoy the writing for the way Langer makes conversations and descriptions flow so easily on the pages. But in summing up the book, I felt at the end it was too dispassionate. My view was that Langer needed to express more in his characters so they would come across less wooden. The Salinger Contract has none of the qualities that I found distracting in CC. TSC took show more me by the hand from the very beginning and never let go until the very end. It was absorbing with its plot details, it had some twists and turns I never saw coming until Langer was ready for me to see what he was revealing, and, best of all, I wasn’t very far into the book before I realized I could NOT put it down. That’s my main criterion in judging the books I read. I always finish books I start, BUT is that rule an endurance test, or is it almost a chase to the end because I gotta know what this is all about? I was so engrossed in The Salinger Contract I finished it in one day. What’s more, I need to read it again. And probably again.

The story of The Salinger Contract is told by a narrator, but the basic story is not about him; at least, not at first. It begins with the narrator running into a man he remembers from the past, but he doesn’t remember their relationship as one that was as close and friendly as the other man, Conner Joyce, seems to think it was. However, after spending time with Conner, Langer, the narrator, begins to accept that he and Conner were the kind of buddies Conner implies they were. Langer believes the story Conner relates to him, and he comes to believe, as Conner keeps reassuring him, that he and he alone can help Conner with a problem that has grown way out of hand. All of this centers around recluse authors who wished to disappear from the face of the earth rather than deal with the attention and notoriety that goes with becoming famous; authors like Thomas Pynchon, Harper Lee, and J D Salinger. Conner Joyce has something in common with these authors, and it has caused great disruption in his life.this is why he turns to his good friend and buddy, Adam Langer.

There were some special features about TSC that, for me, were good touches. For instance, I loved that Langer named his daughters Ramona and Beatrice. I liked his use of names of well known authors. This gave the story more authenticity than if all the authors names were made up. I particularly enjoyed the way Langer layered his story. The reader is so flawlessly led down whatever trail Langer is following until he begins to sort things out more logically and realizes this may not be all as it appears to be. Add to that a pretty powerful ending, and The Salinger Contract is a book to be enjoyed more than once.

Langer has made me a fan with this book, and I will be looking for other books he’s written, only now when I read him, my perspective will be different. I have rated The Salinger Contract 5 Stars. I cannot wait to see what Langer does next.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley.com in exchange for a review. show less

Ike Ambrose Morphy has been away from his beloved Manhattan for seven months while he cared for his dying mother in Chicago. In that short time, the New York he knew has changed dramatically. The off-limits parts of Central Park he used to frequent with his dog, Herbie Mann, are now patrolled by police. Right away you know Ike is headed for trouble. The hole in a particular fence he used to sneak through is no longer there so he has to cut a new hole. His carrying a tool for that? That's show more new. The cop who caught him gives him a hard time about trespassing. That is also new. Even more disturbing, there are people in his apartment when he finally arrives back home; the place where he has never needed a lease or contract. It is no longer his apartment just as it is no longer his New York. Welcome to Ellington Boulevard. But Ellington Boulevard isn't just Ike's story. Readers will meet the buyer, her husband, the real estate agent (an out of work actor playing the part of a real estate salesperson even though his heart isn't really in it), the broker and a bunch of other interesting characters. Readers will also get a few lessons in music history (like the inventor of the B-flat clarinet, Iwan Muller).
My initial complaint? Some of the characters in Ellington Boulevard were very cliché: stereotypical descriptions of the haves and have-nots. Mark Masler is a good example of that. My only other complaint about Ellington Boulevard? In a city as vast as the Big Apple is, I was surprised Herbie Mann's world was so small. What are the chances that his current owner and previous owner would run in the same circles? show less

In Ellington Boulevard Adam Langer captures the enormity of New York City while at the same time making it seem like a small town where each person is only a few people removed from knowing the others. The novel revolves around a flat and each of the characters that is inadvertantly connected to its sale during the New York City real estate boom. First, there is Ike Morphy, a jazz clarinetist who hears music in even the most mundane activities of the city, the original owner of the flat who show more returns from six months in Chicago nursing his sick mother to find his apartment being sold out from under him. The would-be buyers are Rebecca Sugarman, overachiever editor of the American Standard and her deadbeat English Lit graduate student husband Darrell who can't seem to muster the motivation to finish his dissertation and graduate. The seller is the son of Ike's former landlord, selfish and self-righteous Jew, Mark Masler. The broker is Josh Dybnick a failed would-be New York actor who has found that he his best and most successful acting gig has been simply being a real estate broker. These are just a taste of all the characters that inhabit this book.

Surprisingly, this overabundance of characters isn't overwhelming in the least.
This is because, despite the vast number of them, Langer fully inhabits each of his characters. In Langer's capable hand, each character evolves into a three dimensional person that readers can nearly imagine meeting on the streets of New York. They aren't all lovable or even likeable, but it's hard not to recognize their reality and their humanity. Ellington Boulevard is driven entirely by its characters and their foibles as they count down the days until closing on apartment 2B.

At its heart, Ellington Boulevard is a book about artists and dreamers and a New York City that at once attracts them with its promises of a rich environment for artists and for dreams coming true while squashing their dreams beneath the unfortunate daily realities that living there entails. Each of the characters seems to struggle with a constant push and pull between their art, their dreams, and the possibility that New York exudes and their labors under the heavy financial burden that the city exerts upon them. In Langer's New York, there is a constant question of whether people will follow their hearts or whether they will sell out to the highest bidder, and readers will wait with breath held to see which of Langer's characters will choose which path.

The only thing that took away from this book, in my opinion, was the lack of traditional dialogue. Paragraph breaks and quotations are at a minimum which makes the book a bit slow going to start because it seems very dense. Once the first few pages are past, however, any struggles stemming from Langer's non-traditional style disappear as the story takes you in. Langer's New York is beautifully rendered and filled with big characters that capture the imagination. His love for and understanding of the forces that drive New York City shine through and make Ellington Boulevard a captivating read.

He still loves the sense of possiblity that permeates every building and block. He loves the view of the Hudson from Riverside Park, loves watching the ducks paddle in the Central Park pond, loves the almost-too-pungent scent of gingkos on Manhattan Avenue in the summer. He loves watching his dog's tail wag when he pulls Ike toward Strangers' Gate. He loves the sounds of baseball games in Morningside, mah-jongg tiles on 107th Street, playing cards outside the Frederick Douglass Apartments, the subway underfoot, the flutter and clang of the flags atop the Blockhouse -- every bit of it is music. show less

I can’t say much about the plot without taking away the fun of reading it. Langer plays constantly with what is truth and what is fiction, morphing one into the other and back again before you even realize he’s doing it. As you’re was following him on this twisty turn-y reality roller coaster, you really start thinking about true vs. invented and how it might apply to, ahem, book publishing today.

I didn’t find The Thieves of Manhattan to be a particularly beautifully written novel, show more but it reads well. It’s fast paced and keeps you delighted and guessing. And I do enjoy when a book has a hidden (or not so hidden) agenda, if the author weaves it into the story so well that you hardly notice it as being separate from the story.

My full review is posted on Erin Reads. show less