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 his wife, Beate; his daughters, Nora and Solveig; and their dog, Kazoo.
A Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of 2013
“Skewers pretensions of writers and writing, editors and
publishers—and perhaps audiences—in a literary thriller. . . .
Marvelously intriguing.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Whom do we really write for and why? Langer’s mad-genius look at
creativity, publishing, and the difference between what we do for
love and what we’re forced to do for money, plumbs the dark side of
inspiration with funhouse aplomb. Dizzyingly brilliant, with prose
as clear as a rushing stream.” —Caroline Leavitt, New York
Times–bestselling author of Pictures of You and Is This
Tomorrow
“‘Revelatory. Keeps all its secrets to the end, which is a
whopper.’ . . . Wait. That’s a blurb for a novel within Adam
Langer’s novel. But it applies just as well to The Salinger
Contract, Langer’s latest nervy excursion on the boundary between
fiction, non-fiction, and literary gamesmanship. A lot of fun, up
to and including that whopper . . .” —Ben Yagoda, author of How to
Not Write Bad: The Most Common Writing Problems and the Best Ways
to Avoid Them and Memoir: A History
“In The Salinger Contract, Adam Langer serves as chief
anthropologist, guiding us deftly through the tribal customs of the
literary world—its longings, follies, disappointments, and secret
obsessions. Like nesting boxes, this novel is neat with puzzles and
intrigue. I couldn’t put it down—a cliché I can’t resist!”
—Patricia Henley, National Book Award–nominated author of Other
Heartbreaks and In the River Sweet
“The Salinger Contract is at once a mercilessly readable thriller,
and a sly commentary on the state of the artist in the modern
world. Langer undermines the reader’s expectation at every twist
and turn, proving, as only the best thrillers do, that nothing is
what it seems.” —Jonathan Evison, author of West of Here and The
Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving Praise for Adam
Langer “Adam Langer’s enigmatic new book . . . twists and
turns like a Mobius strip.” —National Public Radio on The Thieves
of Manhattan “Langer has that rare combination of fierce
intelligence, wicked wit and the ability to make you turn the pages
at wrist-splintering speed.” —USA Today on Ellington
Boulevard “A wonderful, heartfelt book.” —Ken Burns, director
of The Civil War, on My Father’s Bonus March “The most vivid
novel about Chicago since Saul Bellow’s Herzog and the most
ambitious debut set in Chicago since Philip Roth’s Letting Go . .
.A terrific book.” —Chicago Tribune on Crossing California
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