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Loading... Motherless Brooklyn (1999)by Jonathan Lethem
Really interesting book narrated by a detective who has Tourette's syndrome. (  ) nmele | Apr 6, 2013 |  This is a book I admired rather than loved. The main character, Lionel Essrog (I can't shake the feeling that his name is an anagram) is an erudite stooge of a small-time hood. Lionel must solve the mystery of the murder of his boss/father figure. Yeah, it's a murder mystery/crime story, but it's also a comedy, because Lionel has Tourette's Syndrome. Not only does he shout out rude words at inopportune times, but his utterances contain advanced wordplay, as he takes in what he hears and throws back funhouse versions thereof. A lot of hilarious stuff happens along the way, that had me laughing out loud. For example, put a tourettic protagonist in a zen meditation session: instant hijinks! And Lionel can't tell a joke without blurting out the punchline way too soon. Really, the only problem I have with the book is I wanted a little more closure. This is a book with genre trappings, so I expected more resolutions. Who is Bailey? Who were Lionel's birth parents? But maybe lack of resolution is the point. Everybody gets his or her moment to shine and the ending indicates this story was Lionel's moment, and that afterward he must sink back into the the role of the stooge, the freaky sidekick. Still, if Lionel Essrog were the star of a series of detective novels, I'd be pleased as hell. I'd snap up every one. This book came out in 1999, way before the TV series Monk. If they adapted Lionel into other media at this point, people would think it's a ripoff of Monk, but it'd be the other way around. (  ) EricKibler | Apr 6, 2013 | I tried fortress of solitude...wasn't impressed, but this seems promising.  pam.enser | Apr 1, 2013 | I mention this book in this review: http://mewlhouse.hubpages.com/_1qsqsuzy8itx3/hub/A-Time-For-Fists ( ) MSarki | Mar 29, 2013 | A good story, but Brooklyn is the real star here, and this is a great (and accurate) depiction of it. (  ) sly_wit | Mar 29, 2013 | no reviews | add a review
 Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0375724834, Paperback)Pop quiz. Please complete the following sentence: "There are days when I get up in the morning and stagger into the bathroom and begin running water and then I look up and I don't even recognize my own _." If you answered face, then your name is obviously not Jonathan Lethem. Instead of taking the easy out, the genre-busting novelist concludes this by-the-numbers string of words with toothbrush in the mirror.This brilliant sentence and a lot of other really excellent ones compose Lethem's engaging fifth novel, Motherless Brooklyn. Lionel Essrog, a detective suffering from Tourette's syndrome, spins the narrative as he tracks down the killer of his boss, Frank Minna. Minna enlisted Lionel and his friends when they were teenagers living at Saint Vincent's Home for Boys, ostensibly to perform odd jobs (we're talking very odd) and over the years trained them to become a team of investigators. The Minna men face their most daunting case when they find their mentor in a Dumpster bleeding from stab wounds delivered by an assailant whose identity he refuses to reveal--even while he's dying on the way to the hospital. Detectives? Brooklyn? Is this the same Lethem who danced the postapocalypso in Amnesia Moon? Incredibly, yes, and rarely has such a departure been pulled off with this much aplomb. As in the "toothbrush" passage above, Lethem sets himself up with the imposing task of making tired conventions new. Brooklyn accents? Fuggetaboutit. Lethem's dialogue is as light on its feet as a prize fighter. Lionel's Tourette's could have been an easy joke, but Lethem probes so convincingly into the disorder that you feel simultaneously rattled, sympathetic, and irritated by the guy. Sure, the story is a mystery, but Motherless Brooklyn could be about flower arranging, for all we care. What counts is Lionel's tic-ridden take on a world full of surprises, propelling this fiction forward at edgy, breakneck speed. --Ryan Boudinot (retrieved from Amazon Sat, 04 Sep 2010 21:00:40 -0400) A black comedy in New York's criminal underworld. The twitching hero--he suffers from Tourette's syndrome--is one of four misfits who were rescued from an orphanage by a man who gave them jobs in his detective agency. Now the man has been killed and the boys intend to get the killer.… (more) |
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