Mount Chicago: A Novel

While this novel has a number of redeeming qualities–humor, political commentary, and descriptions of Chicago that make you feel like you’re in the city, Adam Levin’s Mount Chicago is a tough read. The language feels like there’s a joke around every sad corner though the joke is not often “funny ha-ha” so much as it is wry and observationally tragic, the plot confusing, and the characters either border on detestable or just plain obnoxious.

After a hole opens up in the city and consumes much of Michigan Avenue along with many Chicagoans, the major characters must grapple with how this catastrophe affects them. The novel is riddled with pop culture references and asides that are exhausting even in their brilliance. The two central characters, Apter Schutz and Solomon Gladman, are clear and apt representations of so much that is wrong with America–a rich, untalented kid who thinks an old unknown (Gladman) that he’s long admired can solve the suffering of the city.

There is no doubt that Levin can write. The chaotic and heartbreaking world is rendered perfectly, but when democracy seems to be burning down, and we’re all swallowed up by our own pain each day, Mount Chicago may be a little too real to be enjoyable.