Crossing California, Part 2

There's a new review of Adam Langer's Crossing California in the New York Times, by Mark Kamine. Kamine is considerably less laudatory of the novel than was James Atlas; although he does say it "hits high points of comic empathy", his summation is rather subdued:

Yet the novel often feels forced and slack -- Langer has an unsteady hand on the rudder. He thoroughly and elaborately exposes the narrow goals and narcissistic motivations of his middle-class Midwestern characters. He now needs to find a more fluent method of bringing them to life.