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A Novel in A-Flat
by Adam Langer
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.
"Starred Review. A New York City novel par excellence." - Kirkus Reviews.
"I loved this book, but then I've always been a sucker for quality. Adam Langer lifts the lid off the top of New York City and lets us see, close up, and terribly personally, the cosmopolitan complexity of the city that never sleeps alone. In his fugue-like charting of their lives—lives that cross, lives that double-cross—he reveals his love of all things New York: its people, its dogs, and, even more remarkably, its pigeons. The composition and orchestration that Mr. Langer has gifted us with would have delighted the Duke himself."
- Larry Gelbart, creator of M*A*S*H, co-screenwriter of Tootsie, and author of City of Angels and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.
This information about Ellington Boulevard was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Born and raised in Chicago, Adam Langer is the author of the novels Crossing California, The Washington Story, Ellington Boulevard, and The Thieves of Manhattan, and the memoir My Father's Bonus March. His has written about books and authors for such publications as the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Huffington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Washington Post, among others. He has been a frequent radio and TV guest, including appearances on CNN, Fox, and NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered. The Chicago Public Library recently purchased a significant collection of his papers. He is the former senior editor of Book Magazine and currently serves as the arts and culture editor of the Jewish Daily Forward. Langer lives in New York City with...
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