Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
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``The Washington Story'' by Adam Langer; Riverhead ($24.95)
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Adam Langer's delightful sequel to ``Crossing California'' is not an expose about the nation's capital but a remarkably vivid and descriptive portrait of Chicago in the 1980s, when Harold Washington managed to defeat the Daley Democratic machine to become the city's first black mayor.
As seen through the eyes of Langer's sprawling, multiracial cast, Chicago - specifically the conservative Jewish neighborhood of West Rogers Park - evolves as its intricately crafted, fascinating residents try to adjust to the inevitable change. Langer, who has a sharp eye for the absurdities of family relations and inner-city life, grew up in the community, and his intimate understanding permeates every thoughtful description, every pitch-perfect joke, every delicious cadence of dialogue. He immerses us in the city's culture, using significant historical details as counterpoints to his characters' lives: the rise to power of Mikhail Gorbachev, the Challenger explosion and the reappearance of Halley's comet.
The story opens in 1982, a year after the events of Crossing California. Muley Scott Wills, "the coolest eighth grader" and budding filmmaker, is now in high school, fretting over the difficulty of creating art with an impact and fooling around with slutty classmate Connie on a school trip to Cape Canaveral. The unsettled crankiness of Muley's sort-of girlfriend Jill Wasserstrom has blossomed into passionate activism. She supports Washington's candidacy and writes for the aggressive school paper, which is "midway between extracurricular activity and cult."
Jill's sister Michelle, attending college in New York, disdains politics but does care about acting, and so she returns home to star in the atrocious low-budget film The Godfathers of Soul. As cynical as ever, she's surprised to find herself in love with the ambitious director, Mel Coleman, who is too old for her and not available anyway, as he is dating Muley's mom.
Michelle's ex-boyfriend Larry, creator of the rock band Rovner!, is also in college, with a fiancee who is determined to turn his songs of Jewish teen angst into a Broadway musical. Larry's torn between doing what he's supposed to do - marry a nice Jewish girl, have kids, be successful at something - and the horror of seeing his work "emasculated." One line from (`My Lovin' Ain't) Always Orthodox has been revised from "Take a walk with me, Zipporah/I'll show you something you won't find in your Torah" to "Let's stay up all night reading Torah," and Larry is not sure he can live with the change.
Change, though, is the constant with which these ordinary but gripping characters must cope. Muley and Jill must leave high school fantasies behind; Michelle and Larry must make serious choices for the future. Their parents need to make some adjustments, too. Langer's humor is as sharp as ever, and he imbues these gropings for identity with wit and a playful sense of fun. ``The Washington Story'' may be set in Chicago, but in the end it's universally appealing, an insightful vision of our comical, sad, infuriating, wonderful lives.
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(c) 2005, The Miami Herald. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service.
