Mount Chicago: A Novel

by Adam Levin

From the award-winning author of Bubblegum and The Instructions , a daring new novel about the irony, the humor, and the heartbreak of survivorship.

"Adam Levin is one of our wildest writers and our funniest." –George Saunders, bestselling, award-winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo

A one-in-ten-billion natural disaster devastates Chicago. A Jewish comedian, his most devoted fan, and the city’s mayor must struggle to move forward while the world—quite literally—caves beneath their feet.  With this polyphonic tale of Chicago-style politics and political correctness, stand-up comedy and Jewish identity, celebrity, drugs, and animal psychology, Levin has constructed a monument to laughter, love, art, and resilience in an age of spectacular loss.

Genres: Fiction, Novels, Literature, Audiobook, Jewish, Dystopia, Satire

592 pages, Paperback

First published August 9, 2022

About the author

Adam Levin’s debut novel, The Instructions, was published in late 2010. His stories have appeared in Tin House, McSweeney’s, and Esquire. Winner of the 2003 Tin House/Summer Literary Seminars Fiction Contest and the 2004 Joyce Carol Oates Fiction Prize, Levin holds an MA in Clinical Social Work from the University of Chicago and an MFA in Creative Writing from Syracuse University. His collection of short stories, Hot Pink, was published by McSweeney’s in 2011. He lives in Chicago, where he teaches writing at Columbia College and The School of the Art Institute.

Authorial Influences and Inspirations: Adam Novy, George Saunders, Leslie Lockett, Stanley Elkin, Christian TeBordo, Rebecca Curtis, Jerzy Kosinski, David Foster Wallace, Salvador Plascencia, Don DeLillo, Philip Roth, JD Salinger, and Katherine Dunn

Reviews

[TheBookWarren · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 Stars — Adam Levin, the more time that passes and the more images this prodigious, self-confessed-neurotic-manic-crazy-man. The more his work takes on a tour de force aura. This particular paragon — Mount Chicago — Is perhaps his most intricate and ambitious works yet. That’s a big call to make, but considering the more complex narrative interweaved with the bold choice of a more simplistic vernacular, is what makes this such a compelling and at times earth-shattering novel.

I cannot offer much more right now without much more cogitation upon re-reading of marked 250+ passages — such is the dizzying impact of Levin’s words on my psyche. Yes, it is what is I must admit, that Levin is my personal favourite author alive today, and is so by a distance of the length of the stairway to the heavens — so therefore my bias needs to be circumnavigated to offer a truly impartial review and offer insights into the bat-shit-crazy-genius-terror that is Levin’s structure and prose.

I can say that Levin has clearly made some significant strides in the harnessing of his majestic word-smithery. As there are much less lengthy diatribes that offer little more than anecdotal evidence of the protagonist’s broken and twisted yet poignant musings. Instead we see a much more layered narrative that is of a more staid propulsion.

I can also highly recommend anyone whom enjoys literary-genius, a good time & an off-the-wall magic carpet ride through a narrative that offers a different perspective of a post apocalyptic earth, where things go — for me — much more like they would, should the unthinkable occur than almost any other scenario I’ve read, which is a multitude to be sure.

Levin is a master and whisky this is not Bugglegum or The Instructions, and a work of staggering complexity using trademark simplicity & Juan-insight that cuts to the bone on a transcendent scale. But it is a majestic novel, that parlays todays modern world frailties and hypocrisy in a way that allows the reader to interpret in the manner they most resonate with. This novel is one that like most Levin work — smuggled itself into your senses & command you
To take another peek or to try the audiobook for a second reading with a different perspective altered by pacing and distance in the text! He is a genuine master-craftsman that I suspect or prognosticate that he will be as vaunted and lauded as a true literary-fiction legend somewhere between Saunders & DFW.

I can’t plead enough with anyone whom likes Saunders if DFW or Doctorow or any genuinely brilliant Literary Fiction ‘stud’ — that you give Levin a solid, comprehensive, exhaustive try.. just trust me!!!

[Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Difficult to know what to say to briefly encapsulate this one -- but it's hilarious and brilliant and very sad in a kind of Infinite Jest / The Last Samurai way.

[Kevin Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yeah, definitely my favorite Levin. Loved.

[Chris Via]

Video on Adam Levin's work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvAgG...

[cycads and ferns · Rating 4 out of 5]

“…he wished Sylvie’d admire him. He doubted she was even aware of it, though, the generosity of his intentions….She gave no indication of being aware of it, and there wasn't any way he could think of to make her aware of it without undermining his claim to generosity, if not the generosity itself. If you ask that your generosity be acknowledged as generosity, did that not transform it into something— or reveal it to be something-other than generosity?
Enough fucking Talmud.”

Gladman, a comedian and writer, loses his entire family to a sinkhole. A benefit concert and Mount Chicago, a monument commemorating the dead, are in the works. Apter, from the Chicago mayor’s office, asks Gladman to perform. He agrees but first Apter must agree to take Gladman’s Quaker parrot, Gogol, for a few days.

“‘The goal of every memorial should be to be as moving as Auschwitz, but at the same time, that does not necessarily mean that the goal of every memorial should be to be as depressing. So what I want, I'm saying, is I want Mount Chicago to achieve that level of being moving, but also, at the same time, to be less depressing.’
‘Than Auschwitz,’ said Apter.
‘I want it to be a less depressing Auschwitz.’
‘A less depressing Auschwitz,’ said Apter.
‘Our less depressing Auschwitz,’ said the mayor.”

[Downward · Rating 4 out of 5]

mount chicago is a hard to pin down novel, one that seems immensely autobiographical in spite of its fantastic inciting incident and in spite of (actually explicitly because of) the author's forward in which he distances the novel from autobiography. it's also a really recursive, shaggy dog story that fills up the pages with meandering and laying the some breadcrumbs to get us back to the "plot" but because it's more concerned with character (like most good novels) the plot is I guess basically nonexistent. It's also simultaneously very sad, because it's involves immense loss and because the ways in which the author directs the reader to recognize the ties to his own life, it in part reads like a panic attack of a novel, wherein a person manifests their worst fears and displays them. but...in that displaying there's a lot there about laughter and the beautiful moments that let life breathe. it's also, in spite of that, alternately, a fairly mean spirited novel where you can be blindsided by some of the characters judgments and actions and the way that they relate to the world. there are also multiple major moments that revolve around pooping, which, I mean, who among us.

also: features the most charming bird in all of literature. all those other literary birds can go screw; Gogol for life.

[Greg Zimmerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

First appeared at https://www.thenewdorkreviewofbooks.c...

I have some questions for you, Mr. Levin. You're a very good writer. You KNOW you're a very good writer. You're also a very self-aware writer. So when you're as good a writer as you are, and you fully understand what you're doing and its effect on your reader as well as you do, why do you insist on aggravating your reader just to the point where he wants to throw your novel across the goddamn room? Why? Why why why why why?

Is it because it helps the other 90 percent of the novel, which is truly a marvel, stand out in even more stark relief? Is it because you're just a prankster? Do you just like keeping your readers on their toes, making sure they're paying attention? Or is it because you truly like to inflict a small measure of pain on people?

It doesn't matter. I'll still read every damn word you ever write if the remaining words you write in your career are even one-third as f#%king incredible as the good 90 percent of Mount Chicago.

To my readers, most of whom I've probably already lost: Mount Chicago is one of the funniest novels I've ever read. That's the first time I've ever bolded a sentence in a review. Because that's really the one thing you need to know about this book. And when you consider it's sort of kind of tangentially about a massive tragedy that kills thousands of people, that's a pretty neat trick. And that's not the only trick. There's no line between author and novel here. As the kids say, so meta. Except maybe there is a line? Who knows? I'm not smart enough to try to figure that out. And I don't think Adam Levin wants you try.

To describe it further, and I fully realize this is an absolutely ridiculous analogy, and I have no doubt Adam Levin would hate this, but this is my small measure of payback for making me read pages and pages about behavioral psychology and parrots and that really, really long duck (yes, duck) joke: Mount Chicago is what would happen if Kurt Vonnegut on speed, a baked and giggly Philip Roth (can you imagine?!), and David Foster Wallace on...well, no, just normal DFW...had a book baby.

I can't find the passage or the interview now, and maybe I'm imagining this but, I think DFW said something really smart once about reader aggravation: That a good novel must have parts that aggravate the reader, but a good novelist knows just the right amount to antagonize his reader before he can pull back just in time, and entertain again. And so if you think about it, this novel's 575 pages, so 90 percent (again, my approximation for the non-purposefully-aggravating parts) of 575 is 517.5 INCREDIBLE pages. I like those odds. You probably skim over - whether on purpose or because you drift - 10 percent of every novel you read anyway, right?!

All right, so anyway: I loved this book. Absolutely loved it. You don't need to know what it's about, you can read that anywhere. But whatever you read that it's about, it's actually about Entourage (the HBO show) and metafiction and Chicago politics and psychology and cryptocurrency and other get-rich-quick-scams and the author's face and stand-up comedy and writing and depression and tragedy and love and coming-of-age and parrots.

READ THIS.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this Chicago-centric novel (due out on August 9) and use it as one of my book club selections this year. Despite a fabulous premise, a unique writing style and structure, some clever and witty dialogue, a few laugh out loud scenes, and two interesting, multi-dimensional characters plus a parrot named Gogol, I just don't think most readers will have the patience to slog through the nearly 600 pages. I kept telling myself to give up but something compelled me to finish it. I guess I'm glad I did, but the PW review validates my feelings: "Unfortunately, Levin undercuts the otherwise satisfying sociopolitical comedy with frustrating interjections about his struggles to write this novel and sell his previous one, his wife’s uncertainty about whether Apter or Gladman is supposed to be Levin, and many other asides that read like missives to creative writing students or nod to the difficulties of this latest project. As the frustrated reader will find, acknowledging a problem is not equivalent to solving it." The Kirkus review isn't as harsh but also criticizes Levin's ramblings: "Seemingly by design, the novel tests the reader's patience with long streams of obsessive musings on subjects ranging from pizza preferences to the films of Steven Spielberg . . ." And, the missives are really long that I eventually started to skim through them. It's really a shame because I think this novel had the potential to be really exceptional - it just gets in its own way. Readers who appreciate books like The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen, The Ruined House by Ruby Namdar, and Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday might find that Mount Chicago is their cup of tea.

[Geonn Cannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a love it or hate it book. I loved it, but I understand anyone who hates it. It feels like a parody of a pretentious literary novel. Like if you had a Very Important Writer in a movie or TV show, this is the book he'd be writing. "I'm stuck on an extended sequence about how Hitler would eat an egg," or "There's a section of the book where I spend close to an hour telling a joke about a duck." But the author seems aware of this in a way that makes it unannoying, and all the asides and fourth wall breaks (Levin apologizes around 2/3 of the way through for how long the book has gotten) and tangentical stories... they all feel worthwhile. And they enhance the main story about the Chicago sinkhole (which isn't really the main story at all).

I do wish there'd been more about the sinkhole, really (screw you, Mr. Mayor, I'm not calling it 'the anamoly). Public reaction, national reactions... a huge chunk of downtown Chicago collapses and it seems like the world just continues on as normal once the infrastructure is restored. Seemed like there should've been space for a wider reaction.

All that said, definitely one of my favorite books of the year, but not one I'm likely to recommend to people just because there's a very sharp love/can't stand line for this sort of writing.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Levin is a combo of kurt vonnegut's zany absurdity and David foster Wallace's expansive storytelling

[Daryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked this one up as soon as it was available, as I've very much liked Levin's other work. I loved it. It made me laugh uproariously, it made me roll my eyes, and most importantly, it really got my brain cells firing. The books that give me the non-somatic equivalent of a tingly brain are the ones I tend to gravitate toward, and e.g. thinking about this book as a book about how we relate as human beings through stories provoked a real tingle. I won't be so bold as to suggest that that's what the book is "about" (another thing I like about Levin's books is that I mostly take them to be pieces of art rather than being capital-A About things), but it's part of what the book got me thinking about, and that was fun.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is my first time reading a book by Adam Levin. Seeing as this is a new release I was hearing a lot about it leading up to its release. A newly published, maximalist novel, set in Chicago definitely had my interest peaked.

Unfortunately, I really felt let down by this book. The plot that is described in summaries and other's reviews, really isn't the focus of this book at all. Sure, a sinkhole opens in downtown Chicago causing immense damage and death and the book follows the characters living in the aftermath but that really only takes up maybe 100 pages of the book. Most of this book is long tangents on a wide variety of topics, many mundane and dull.

This is the kind of territory you get into with a maximalist novel but even when you are a fan of this kind of story there comes a threshold of tolerance. One might argue that these tangents and descriptive backstories add to the reader's understanding of the characters, which to an extent is true, but oftentimes I found these tangents of little value and many times just detracting from the overall story.

To get into it, these tangents mainly revolve around the characters of the novel (although some are more so anecdotal or just thoughts from the author directly). I may have enjoyed these tangents if I liked these characters but this book has got to hold some of my least liked characters in any book I've read.

The two main characters that this book focuses on are Solomon Gladman and Apter Schutz. Gladman is a stand up comedian who is also an author and teacher; his entire family is taken away from him in the disaster this book "centers" around. Apter is an "Except for Palestine" "Liberal" Edgelord Cryptobro who is a big fan of Gladman's work. These two meet throughout the story and their stories intertwine.

Of the two I have less of a problem with Gladman. He's irritating in his own right and overall very depressing. This is understandable and the point of his character since he has lost his entire family and he feels directionless without them. That being said, it doesn't seem like Gladman really had that great of an affinity for this family to begin with. From the backstory you get of him interacting with his family, mainly his wife, you can tell he likes her but doesn't really show much interest beyond what she can do for him and what she symbolizes to him. Overall he is just very defeatist and doesn't even try to see a future for himself after the event. I'm not saying I wouldn't react the same way given his circumstances but it doesn't make for a very inspiring protagonist.

Apter is by far my least favorite character (I now get how people feel when they completely write off the works of of Salinger or Kerouac due to their protagonists). Gladman and Apter share a lot of similarities but I think due to Apter being younger, and closer to my age, I found him to be more bothersome. Maybe it's because being someone who grew up in the same time frame as him I can better visualize someone like him, having met others who are similar.

If you've looked at some of the other reviews, particularly the one and two star reviews, you may notice a lot of people giving up the book after the first 100 pages. This is mainly due to events in the Apter storyline. For 150 pages readers are subjected to the detailed backstory of Apter, going from his early teenage years to his late twenties (when the events of the book take place).

One of these stories starts in his college years where he is too good for his peers. Judging how they act and essentially offering a very Holden Caufield take on how their level of progressiveness is bad and not like his. This section takes place during the mid 2010's; at the height of the SJW/Buzzfeed era. Now, I get wanting to capture the ridiculousness of this time period in a book but this section really came off as a cringy, off base, view of what "college campus liberals" were and are really like.

The stereotypes you imagine when I mention 2014-2016 Buzzfeed articles about manspreading or whatever are played up to a cartoonish level. I get that this is supposed to be an absurdist book and that not everything is an accurate reflection of reality (I mean we're talking about a book where a sinkhole destroys a defining part of downtown Chicago and the response to it is to create a memorial dedicated to everyone who lived through it) but this felt incredibly out of place compared to most of the rest of the book. This whole section really comes across as a contemporary Tim Allen bit where the joke tells more about the one saying it than the actual society that is being commented on.

Take this from someone who was attending a university mentioned in this book during this time, no actual college students acted like this. This whole section just came across as Levin showcasing that his only knowledge of college students in the last decade comes from youtube videos titled things like "SJW Owned by Facts and Logic Compilation Part 74". This wouldn't be as much an issue for me except this is a maximalist novel where so much effort is put into knowing about various subjects in order to accurately describe them in almost unnecessary amounts of detail.

Among their other similarities, Gladman and Apter share the trait of having immense wealth placed upon them. This really cuts down the stakes and value to everything they do. Money is pretty much an ex machina for them to get out of having to do anything too difficult, or compromise in any way. These characters pretty much get to do anything they want, which isn’t much, on their terms. This is a small element but it did cut down on my investment in them.

Both of these characters are quite clearly based on Levin; not entirely and he'll be sure to remind you, but it's undeniable to assume otherwise. There are many times where Levin utilizes metafiction and offers his own direct opinions and voice, which to be honest, aren't really that different from Gladman and Apter.

These three are really just shades of each other and it's generally something I just didn't really enjoy reading that much. There is such a judgmental, whiny, and irritating tone to a lot of what is described here and it was directed not just at other characters in the book but also the readers themselves. There definitely is an audience for this kind of thing but it really wasn't what I was looking for. Maybe this is just the drastic contrast of Levin compared to the other authors I've been reading this month (Morrison and Brautigan).

I might as well cover what I did like about the book. While I thought many of the tangents were unnecessary or deviating from the actual plot and purpose of the book, I did find some to be enjoyable and well crafted. When these moments hit for me they did really show Levin as a competent writer worthy of the hype I had been presented with prior to reading but unfortunately these sections were few and far between.

I will say that while the subject matter of these tangents might not have always entertained me, Levin has really figured out the structure to maximalist storytelling and can craft rabbit holes that are enticing and exciting to read from a narrative standpoint. I think what really kept me going through the dull moments was the excitement of reading a dense maximalist novel. I really was in the mood for a book of this style and while I felt let down ultimately, I did enjoy spending my time in a deeply vast world.

I read this book in just eight days. I'm not a fast reader and maybe some of this was spurred on by the fact that I only had three weeks to finish this before returning it to the library but I found it to be quite fast paced at times. I also found this book to be pretty straightforward to follow; compared to other maximalist novels. I would almost recommend this as a "baby's first maximalist novel" but I'd be more inclined to tell someone to read something more challenging with a greater payoff.

Another thing I have to commend Levin for doing with Mount Chicago is writing a book that feels so much on his terms. This is unashamedly the true work of this man put to page. This is almost to a fault. If there were things that were cut by an editor for straying too far off the path I'd be surprised and almost curious to know what they were. This book really is Levin going in whatever direction he wants and exploring or not exploring whatever he sees fit without regard for the reader or any other potential audience. This is a dangerous game and for me at least, I think it is a big part of my disappointment. Levin puts the reader through a lot, asking for their patience and tolerance without much of a reward for doing so.

This book is often described as an absurdist novel but to be honest, it really wasn't that absurd. Sure there are sections that are full on bizarre and occasionally highly imaginative but most of the time things are pretty straight laced and down to earth. While I do think the contrast between absurd and conventional is important to make that distinction more impactful I felt the book leaned more towards based in a true reality. Maybe it's just that I've read a lot of absurdist works and I have a higher expectation than others or that our real world becomes more and more absurd with each passing day but I felt this wasn't that off the wall.

As a book with Chicago in the title there really isn't that much Chicago. Sure there are moments that hit what I was expecting but many others I didn't really feel like the setting was being fully utilized. If this book took place in another city I wouldn't have liked it as much (although I'd probably not have picked it up in the first place). Some of the places referenced in this book are quite familiar to me as they are very local and while I did find it amusing the few times they were explored in detail I wish they had been visited more. (you can tell this is a work of fiction because there is no place in Humboldt Park that I know of where it is worth getting in your car to get a milkshake)

[Jasey Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adam Levin is one of our best, most inventive living writers - maybe my FAVORITE writer - and his last novel, Bubblegum, was my definitive pandemic novel that helped me during the early months of all that crap.

So it sucks to say that this book is very much a mixed bag. It contains some of Levin’s best writing to date, and also the most frustrating/tedious sections of his career. At a certain point in the novel, Levin speaks directly to the reader and says, basically, that the book has gotten out of control and that it was only meant to be a spry, <200 pages. And at nearly 600 pages, Mount Chicago really has nothing to justify its own length. Often times I had to take a break from it because I was so bored.

The last 150 pages though, have some of my favorite sections in any book, ever, which is why this is 4 stars. Specifically I’m talking about the protagonist’s 100-page standup comedy routine, in which we hear a shockingly good shaggy dog story about a post-Apocalyptic Chicago ruled by flighted penguins.

[C Ayers · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is about sinkhole that opens up in Chicago and the struggles of Solly Goodman who's trying to write this novel and also struggles to sell his previous one. This author's style is repetitive and tiring. His previous novel Bubblegum featured a trans woman performer whose work involves removing her limbs. As a trans woman reader, I found the author's focus in his book on body modification as it relates to trans women to be unsettling and disturbing. This book does not have that kind of content and instead wrangles with autofiction -unfortunately Levin's attempts at autofictional asides are boring, indulgent, and immature. The opening scene is between the author's stand-in, and his wife and involves her giving him a blowjob. It seems like women do not really have much of a purpose in this book beyond that.

[Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved Apter Schutz; didn't care much for Solly Gladman. Loved the first half of the novel; didn't care much for the second half. Loved the clever prose; didn't care much for the overly clever prose. Loved the comedy (when it worked); didn't care much for the unaffecting sincerity. Loved the idea of Gogol; didn't care much for the extended passages from Gogol's perspective. Loved the idea of a chapter told as a first-person voice-recording before a major book-ending event; didn't care much for over 50 pages of said voice-recording being an anticlimactic joke about a duck who wears pants because he gets incessant boners.

Overall enjoyable, but sprinkled with lots of things that should've been edited out. A pretty amazing 350-page novel is buried in here, if you have the courage to extract it.

[Rachel Shattuck · Rating 1 out of 5]

What the actual fuck did I just read??

[Jacob Lietz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book I believe I'll be thinking about for months. Levin is so great at writing about little moments of life that every person can relate to--if not directly call their own experience--and let hang in the air, asking the reader to find the meaning of these moments, if the reader believes in such a thing as meaning, or just enjoy remembering, recollecting, experiencing their life in a piece of fiction so complicated it honors the murky reality of life.

I can't say that this book hit me the way "Bubblegum" did, but I can say that, even if the subject material wasn't as resonant, I love Levin's long sentences, his syntax, and the voices of Gladman and Apter. To be confused by Levin for a hundred pages is an absolute joy for me. I don't know very many writers who do that to me.

[Jack Waters · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Incredible writing, hilarious and oftentimes taking a joke right up to the boundary between hilarity and "uh-oh" -- docked half a star by (probably unfairly) comparing this to The Instructions, which I thoroughly enjoyed. There were just a few areas where I sped through the text to get through it, but I was glad to read another Adam Levin novel with a shorter turnaround between Bubblegum and Mount Chicago than there was between The Instructions and Bubblegum.

[Shelley Ettinger · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh the smug self-satisfied superiority of the anti-woke author. There is of course no such thing as cancel culture, a reactionary coinage created by the right wing and eagerly promoted by the great liberalocracy first and foremost among whom is the literary establishment, but this book makes me wish there were so I could put in my bid for its cancellation. Though I was bracing myself for what I knew was coming from the moment I read the words "political correctness" on the jacket copy, still I read it at a nice clip for the first hundred-some pages, pulled along by the fluid, compelling writing. Then, soon after turning that first-hundred-page corner, the right-wing rants began. The writing still fluid, still compelling, sure, but now revealing itself to be in the service of an offensive and, sorry to tell anyone who thinks there's anything original to be found here, thoroughly shopworn series of rants against the efforts especially by young people to counter and beat back all that is racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and yes, Zionist, in the culture. Ho hum. How dull, how predictable this sort of writer is. Woe is he! How downtrodden the straight white male. How clever it is to expose this. Oy gevalt.

And yep I'm Jewish. And yep I'm anti-Zionist (which no is not synonymous with anti-Semitic, again, how tired, how weak, how easily disproven is such an assertion), and anti-racist, and lesbian to boot, in other words ripe for the cheap satirizing indulged here. I'm also 68 years old, impressed with and proud of the woke (! yes I said it!) young people Levin and other such writers skewer. How wearying is this kind of fiction--whose constant publication, critical lauds, adulatory blurbs, award nominations belie its mewling besieged self-pitying posture--and how well it proves that this is the dominant strain against which the rest of us have every reason to push.

I briefly considered reading on after these initial parodic publishing-industry and campus scenes in the early 100s pages in the faint hope the novel would take a different, dare I say leftward, turn. But such a hope would be foolhardy since the novel's clearly enunciated political bent is so evidently the engine that will henceforth drive it. Also, according to the excellent rule to which I subscribe about when it's okay to give up on a book (up to age 50 you have to read at least twice as many pages as your age before you can stop, and after age 50 you only have to read half as many pages as your age before you can stop), I gave this book way way more pages, way way more chances, than I should have.

Oh, by the way, here's a bonus: women barely exist here, at least in these first 100+ pages that I read before I gave up in disgust. Where there are women characters, they are depicted only in their relation to the male protagonists. Calling Allison Bechdel!

[Stewart Mitchell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had a lot of fun with Levin’s Bubblegum last year and was excited to read this one, so I’m sad to say that it didn’t work nearly as well.

Levin’s voice is, by design, pretty annoying. He inhabits these neurotic, self-absorbed characters and lets them digress ad nauseum, sometimes in chapters that derail the entire book and run for almost 100 pages at a time (or more? I wasn’t counting). This approach is great for someone like me who doesn’t put much stock in the idea of plot and enjoys spending time in the heads of rambling weirdos, so I accepted these sprawling digressions with the same enthusiasm I felt when they popped up in Bubblegum. Levin is frequently hilarious, so it’s usually fun to follow his stream of consciousness bullshit no matter where it goes.

But at a certain point in Mount Chicago, I couldn’t help but wonder if the book had been plotted or outlined at all. There are so many extended sections that don’t amount to much, and when the five (five!!) narrative perspectives start coming together after 350 pages, the results aren’t really worth the time it takes to get there. By the time I realized how the book was about to end, I almost felt… not cheated, but definitely jerked around. Again, I have no interest in plot, but I would at least prefer a book to wrap up in a way that makes me feel that the majority of what I just read has a point.

I’m aware that most of my complaints are features, not bugs, to Levin fans, but for some reason they started to bug me in this one. There’s also a very chunky chapter that takes place on a college campus and concerns itself with cancel culture, gender identity, victimhood politics, and such, and this whole section felt very tacky and disingenuous, to say the least. It didn’t quite ruin the book for me, but it did make me wonder what the author was really trying to say, and I hope he’s not as out of touch as that chapter made him sound.

Despite all of the above, I enjoyed reading this on a page-by-page basis. I laughed a lot, I blew through hundreds of pages at a time, and even if I found it to be a mess, it was never a boring mess, so I’m glad to have read it. I just wish it felt more purposeful in the end.

[Daniel Kassl · Rating 3 out of 5]

The comparisons to David Foster Wallace make sense, and are a major reason for my complaints and praise for this novel. At times, Levin’s storytelling really shines with well-woven character histories and emotion, but at others, it really seems to fall flat in an attempt at literary brilliance that seems overly pretentious.

What Levin masters here is the autobiographical aspect that his two protagonists represent. It’s truly unique, smart, and creative. It’s my main takeaway from this novel, and it redeems the book from the fact that nothing much happens within these 600 pages—something many novels, especially longer ones, can’t recover from. Still, Levin himself complains that this book may have been too long, and I can’t help but to agree a little bit.

[Seth Austin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mount Chicago, or, a masterclass in how to subvert a reader's expectations. With each successive novel of his I read, I see a refinement in both his authorial voice - principally identified by what I would tentatively call "neurotic sincerity" - and the object(s) of his fixation. Every time I encounter his world, he presents a situation that could not be more grandiose - a forthcoming Messiah, a world without the Internet, an urban apocalypse - and each time, he bypasses the thrill-ride narrative he's blueprinted and teased and instead bores his way into the human, and mundane. What greater reflection of reality could one possibly ask for?

[Rebecca May · Rating 4 out of 5]

(audible)

I am NOT recommending this book, out of a well-founded fear that most readers would hate it with all their hearts. I lerved it. By that I mean I loved it, liked it, and at times hated it. But the hating almost always gave way to a real respect for this author. Levin is beyond caring, maybe even wants his readers to feel stuck in a storyline or joke that goes on and on and that you keep thinking will end. A duck joke without a memorable punchline, poop descriptions that do NOT end. And yet, it is hilarious, profound, and heartbreaking.

[Pam · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found this book to be a confusing and often tedious collection of stream of consciousness narratives. I was fairly interested in what happened to Apter and to Gladman, but slogging through pages (and pages) of asides, fantasies, drug trips, intense descriptions of defecating and excruciating details of psychotherapy approaches that may or may not be effective, was NOT worth finding out what happened to them.

[Jay Sandover · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars probably. As in many long novels, some episodes were too long, but everyone should read this for the sections on Gogol the Quaker parrot and the final 75 pages or so.

[Bryan Edelmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would have loved to have loved it more, but this one didn't grab me nearly as hard as Bubblegum or The Instructions. My biggest gripe with it is a seeming lack of purpose, which I do think is intentional. Adam Levin does a great job at writing larger than life characters that more or less are going about their business. But in this particular case, maybe I just haven't been in the right headspace for it, but several times I found myself wanting him to just get on with it. But then again that's what I knew I was getting into, and I did definitely enjoy it despite a few bits that dragged. One of the largest problems I think was just that it wasn't as punchy with it's story as The Instructions and not as personal and human as Bubblegum. He's such a strong writer and you can absolutely bet the farm that I will be picking up any and all books he continues to write going forward, but as far as my interest and taste, this is going to have to rest at a 7/10.

[Jacob Wearsch · Rating 5 out of 5]

First five star book in awhile. This book is irreverent and funny, self-conscious, and nods to many of my favorite authors and books such a DeLillo, Pynchon and Toole. I've recommended this to many friends and see myself reading it again.

[Laurel Saltzman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny, sad, so Chicago. A little long towards the end but Adam Levin is quite the wordsmith.

[Betty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heerlijk proza dat ons meeneemt in de wereld van een /de schrijver, zijn fan en zijn parkiet. Hoe bepaalt de parkiet wie de dominante is in het duo met zijn/haar baas? Hoe niet/leven na massaal verlies? Maakt een goede therapeut zijn ongelukkig? Enz. Een gul boek.

[Christopher · Rating 2 out of 5]

An author being self-indulgent sounds like a criticism, but in my experience, it doesn't have to be. Thomas Pynchon's first novel, V., is probably his most self-indulgent; no whim was left unsatisfied, yet it works somehow, it's his best, in my opinion. David Foster Wallace, another serial self-indulger, has varying success; some of it works so well, but he often goes too far. Postmodern authors are the most self-indulgent and self-pleased of all, which is why they're so controversial. Not everyone is up for the metafictional magic tricks they throw out, and even fewer will sit through the endless digressions they love so much.

Adam Levin's making a name for himself amongst those authors, not just because he's similarly self-indulgent, but because his work is very good and unique and moving. His first novel The Instructions was a blast that was compared incessantly to Infinite Jest but it is so much more readable. His second novel Bubblegum proved that he's no simple DFW clone by being--again--ultra-readable and emotional and addictive.

This book, however, sadly, is not what I'd call ultra-readable or addictive. It's on the wrong side of self-indulgent, as far as I'm concerned. So much of it seems like it was designed to be off-putting, like he took a page from Samuel Beckett's diarrhea-filled playbook and maybe a page from Pynchon's zany book of duck penises. Seriously, there's too much talk about diarrhea and duck penises and Louis CK and there are altogether too many shaggy dog stories that either go too far or not far enough.

There's a thread of anti-wokeness or at least anti-political correctness woven through here that's similarly off-putting. There's a section that talks about how hard it is for a white male author to get published in the current cultural climate, because everyone is interested in seeing perspectives other than that of white males. I don't think Levin is anti-woke in the way that Fox News is anti-woke, or that he's bemoaning his awful fate as a white male, but his willingness to step into this debate as a digression from the main story of his book, is just a little off-putting. The fridging of the protagonist's wife (an obvious stand-in for Levin's actual wife) in the first pages of the book feels like it was included as a middle finger to the awareness of fridging that's come up recently. It's like he's strewn nuggets of semi-anti-wokeness throughout the novel just for a little bit more edge.

I can forgive a lot in a book, however, if I am attached to the characters. I never grew attached to anyone in this book. There's Solomon Gladman, an author and professor who moonlights as a purposely schlocky comedian. There's Apter Schutz, a wunderkind who can do no wrong. And there's a ridiculous mayor. None of these gained my loyalty.

That's not to say there are no good parts. I really enjoyed the beginning. And I enjoyed the ending, which would have been very moving (rather than somewhat moving) had I developed a deeper bond with the characters.

Suffice it to say, this is my least favorite of Adam Levin's novels. But that's not to say I won't be excited when he releases another book. I know this guy's a great talent; he just missed the mark on this one for me.