Crossing California

Review by Catherine Arnold

Literature can vividly evoke a city, stirring up the yen to visit and track down particular intersections, stroll ethnic neighborhoods, nosh at hot dog stands. New York is the subject of countless such paeans and novels; finding such place-evoking books about Chicago, however, particularly since the 1970s, can be a frustrating effort.

No more, however. Recently added to the ranks of those who've written about Chicago's streets (Saul Bellow, Theodore Dreiser, Richard Wright, Nelson Algren, Stuart Dybek, to name a few) is Adam Langer, with Crossing California (Riverhead Books, 2004). His book's late-1970s story takes place in the leafy, brick-three-flat-lined streets of West Rogers Park, a predominantly Jewish area on the far North Side, just south of the suburb of Skokie.

Dividing the area's solidly middle class residents from the close-set apartment buildings to the east was the title's California Avenue. In the late 1970s, West Rogers Park's polyglot nature was just beginning. Today, Indian Row, mostly to the east of California, is a blaze of neon and spicy food aromas, and neighborhood residents and shop owners are Jewish as well as Pakistani, Greek, Turk, Assyrian, Russian, and Georgian, among others.

Despite the twenty year difference, though, some things remain relatively unchanged. The area's principal east-west shopping street, Devon (pronounced "duh-VON") is described in Crossing California: "The cozy shops of Devon Avenue, with its bakeries, record stores, and Judaica emporiums -- stopped at the Western (Ave.) intersection. East of Western were grimy grocery stores, five-and-ten shops, liquor stores, restaurants with their neon lights flickering, bars with Old Milwaukee signs..." Western Devon still has some Judaica emporiums, and east of Western remains a bit seedier.

To plan a trip to the area by bus, look for "Western Ave. at Devon Ave." West Rogers Park is not directly serviced by the El.

Also, if you want to bone up further on West Rogers Park and other Chicago neighborhoods, try Joseph Epstein's collection of short stories, Fabulous Small Jews (Houghton Mifflin, 2003).