Ellington Boulevard: A Novel in A-Flat | Adam Langer | Quirky characters in ultra expensive...

Ellington Boulevard: A Novel in A-Flat | Adam Langer | Very funny and very Manhattan

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	Ellington Boulevard: A Novel in A-Flat Adam Langer Spiegel & Grau, 2008 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 8 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Clarinetist Ike Morphy, his dog Herbie Mann, and a pair of pigeons who roost on his air conditioner are about to be evicted from their apartment on West 106th Street, also known as Duke Ellington Boulevard. Ike has never had a lease, just a handshake agreement with the recently deceased landlord; and now that landlord?s son stands to make a killing on apartment 2B.

Centering on the fate of one apartment before, during, and after the height of New York?s real estate boom, Ellington Boulevard?s characters include the Tenant and His Dog; the Landlord, a recovered alcoholic and womanizer who has newly found Judaism and a wife half his age; the Broker, an out-of-work actor whose new profession finally allows him to afford theater tickets he has no time to use; the Broker?s New Boyfriend, a second-rate actor who composes a musical about the sale of 2B (?Is there no one I can lien on if this boom goes bust??). There?s also the Buyer, a trusting young editor at a dying cultural magazine, who falls in love with the Tenant; the Buyer?s Husband, a disaffected graduate student taken to writing bawdy faux-academic papers; and the Buyer?s Husband?s Girlfriend, a children?s book writer with a tragic past.

With the humor and poignancy that made Langer?s first novel, Crossing California, a favorite book of the year among critics across the country, Ellington Boulevard is an ode to New York. It?s the story of why people come to a city they can?t afford, take jobs they despise, sacrifice love, find love, and eventually become the people they never thought they?d be?for better and for worse.

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Quirky characters in ultra expensive Manhattan

I had recently read an article in the New York Times about about a young playwright who lived in 30 apartments in 20 years in Manhattan. I know this playwright and found the article exotic and gave me a bird's eye view of how much money New Yorkers spend on a few hundred square feet of living space.
When I started reading this book, Ike Morphy, a musician returns to his rented New York apartment only to learn that his inexpensive rental apartment has gone condo and selling for $650,000. It's a small apartment in a renovated area.
Adam Langer weaves a superb tale of New York with fascinating characters: the mortgage broker, the buyer, the seller and auxillary characters who add to the exciting mix. Combining academia, magazine politics, musicians, and most important, real estate razzle dazzle and then the bubble. The book reminded me of the movies Babel and Crash; the characters' lives eventually intertwine and serve up a big impact to the plot.
There are likeable and non-likeable characters: Darrell Schiff who is blatantly self-serving and obnoxious, Mark Masler, a womanizer, ex-alcoholic and observant Jew, who inherited his father's real estate but not his benevolence, and Herbie Mann, a dog, aka Lucky, who belogned to Chloe, who typifies the worst of magazine industry. Herbie Mann belongs to Ike the musician who is in love with Rebecca, Darrell's wife. Oh, and there are a pair of pigeons who roost outside the apartment/condo.
The novel is humorous and smart; the characters turn out to be the people they never thought they could become.

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Very funny and very Manhattan

Really enjoyed this novel - and as someone who has gone through the process of purchasing an apartment in Manhattan I'm not surprised that Langer was able to create a funny and insightful novel out of this source material.

Ellington Boulevard is a wonderful novel about the warfare involved in acquiring property in New York City. What I liked most about this book was the myriad of characters with all of their faults lovingly laid out and intersecting. The themes of music and musical comedy throughout are also very engaging. Overall, a fun and insightful read that gives the reader a beautiful picture of Manhattan.

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An ode to New York and the people who live there

A 40 year old ex clarinet player gets threatened with eviction from his Manhattan Valley apartment along with his dog. The rest of book follows along with his trials and travails along with those of all the participants in this "real-estate" play. The technique of using acts of a play is a little kitschy but the writing is smart and the characters are well drawn. The novel is well-paced but the characters, though "smartly" developed, could have been even more fleshed out. The only reason I didn't give this book 5 stars is because it annoyed me that by the end of the book my favorite character hands down was the dog, Herbie Mann, and not either of the main characters, Ike and Rebecca.

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reads like a weekend with a great friend

If reading were only about the pleasure of it, this book would be close to five stars. I've recommended it to several friends as a guaranteed entertainment. The story gets you turning pages. You like the characters, as does the author, and every few pages or so, he achieves a depth of understanding that puts the book squarely in the category of literary fiction. More pretentious writers could learn from him. He's an honest writer, Adam Langer, and the people are recognizably real and often quite funny. His style is that of a thoughtful craftsman and never gets in the way of the story, and, here and there, it elevates some.

That said, many, many chapters follow a similar pattern: they start in the flow of the narrative, but then loop back to give backstory, often a rather extended backstory. Most of these are interesting and well done, some even crucial to the narrative, but that they are done again and again becomes an irritant, at least to me, and made me think that maybe he could have started his story at an earlier point. And that gave me the thought that if Mr. Langer forced himself to stay in the narrative chronology, he might find himself writing some truly remarkable books.

It's a good read anyway, an enjoyable experience, and his depictions of people in the wrong relationships are painfully funny.

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reviews: page 1, 2

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