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Jonathan Lethem

Author of Motherless Brooklyn

102+ Works 22,323 Members 581 Reviews 95 Favorited

About the Author

Jonathan Lethem was born in Brooklyn, New York on February 19, 1964. His first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music was published in 1994. His other works include As She Climbed across the Table (1997), Amnesia Moon (1995), The Fortress of Solitude (2003), You Don't Love Me Yet (2007), Chronic City show more (2009), and Dissident Gardens (2013). He won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Motherless Brooklyn (1999). He also writes short stories, comics and essays. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, Rolling Stone, Esquire, The New York Times, The Paris Review, McSweeney's and other periodicals and anthologies. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Author Jonathan Lethem at the 2015 Texas Book Festival. By Larry D. Moore, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44687865

Series

Works by Jonathan Lethem

Motherless Brooklyn (1999) 4,837 copies
The Fortress of Solitude (2003) 3,963 copies
Gun, With Occasional Music (1994) 2,298 copies
Chronic City (2009) 1,417 copies
As She Climbed Across the Table (1997) 1,251 copies
Amnesia Moon (1995) 1,026 copies
Men and Cartoons: Stories (2004) 901 copies
You Don't Love Me Yet (2007) 891 copies
Girl in Landscape (1998) 860 copies
Dissident Gardens (2013) 591 copies
The Feral Detective (2018) 365 copies
This Shape We're In (2001) 314 copies
A Gambler's Anatomy (2016) 286 copies
The Arrest (2020) 278 copies
Kafka Americana: Fiction (1999) 193 copies
Omega: The Unknown (2000) 138 copies
The Best American Comics 2015 (2015) — Editor — 89 copies
They Live (Deep Focus) (2010) 83 copies
How we Got Insipid (2006) 68 copies
Philip Roth at 80: A Celebration (2014) — Contributor — 57 copies
The Best American Mystery Stories 2019 (2019) — Editor — 47 copies
The Blot (2016) 22 copies
The Happy Man 6 copies
Vanilla Dunk 6 copies
Lostronaut 5 copies
Vivian Relf 2 copies
The Empty Room 2 copies
Glasses 2 copies
Brooklyn Crime Novel (2023) 2 copies
Árva Brooklyn (2001) 1 copy
Il detective selvaggio (2019) 1 copy

Associated Works

We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962) — Introduction, some editions — 7,765 copies
The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare (1908) — Introduction, some editions — 6,870 copies
Miss Lonelyhearts & The Day of the Locust (1933) — Introduction, some editions — 2,181 copies
Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse (2008) — Contributor — 1,507 copies
Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick (2002) — Introduction, some editions — 816 copies
The Book of Other People (2008) — Contributor — 729 copies
McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories (2004) — Contributor — 663 copies
The Best American Short Stories 2008 (2008) — Contributor — 558 copies
The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick (1974) — Editor — 538 copies
Fierce Attachments: A Memoir (2005) — some editions — 501 copies
The Year's Best Science Fiction: Tenth Annual Collection (1993) — Contributor — 426 copies
VALIS and Later Novels (1970) — Editor — 403 copies
Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology (2007) — Contributor — 378 copies
Unpacking My Library: Writers and Their Books (2011) — Contributor — 372 copies
The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eighth Annual Collection (1991) — Contributor — 370 copies
The Best American Essays 2005 (2005) — Contributor — 339 copies
Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology (2006) — Contributor — 305 copies
Mortification: Writers' Stories of Their Public Shame (2003) — Contributor — 293 copies
The Best American Essays 2008 (2008) — Contributor — 287 copies
Half-Minute Horrors (2009) — Contributor — 272 copies
Store of the Worlds: The Stories of Robert Sheckley (2012) — Editor — 271 copies
A Meaningful Life (1971) — Introduction, some editions — 268 copies
It Happened in Boston? (1968) — Introduction, some editions — 222 copies
On the Yard (1967) — Introduction, some editions — 215 copies
The Best American Comics 2010 (2010) — Contributor — 205 copies
Granta 86: Film (2004) — Contributor — 203 copies
Conjunctions: 39, The New Wave Fabulists (2002) — Contributor — 197 copies
The Secret History of Fantasy (2010) — Contributor — 196 copies
The Secret History of Science Fiction (2009) — Contributor — 194 copies
Lit Riffs (2004) — Contributor — 164 copies
This Is My Best: Great Writers Share Their Favorite Work (2004) — Contributor — 155 copies
The Best of McSweeney's {complete} (1800) — Contributor — 138 copies
Starlight 2 (1998) — Contributor — 137 copies
Four Letter Word: New Love Letters (2007) — Contributor — 134 copies
Burned Children of America (2001) — Contributor — 117 copies
The Mammoth Book of Extreme Fantasy (2008) — Contributor — 109 copies
McSweeney's Issue 34 (McSweeney's Quarterly Concern) (2010) — Contributor — 108 copies
Invaders: 22 Tales from the Outer Limits of Literature (2016) — Contributor — 106 copies
Give Our Regards to the Atomsmashers! Writers on Comics (2004) — Contributor — 105 copies
The Best of Crank! (1998) — Author — 98 copies
McSweeney's Issue 3: Windfall Republic (1999) — Contributor — 94 copies
Nebula Awards Showcase 2000 (2000) — Contributor — 78 copies
Read Hard: Five Years of Great Writing from the Believer (2009) — Contributor — 77 copies
Full Spectrum 5 (1995) — Contributor — 73 copies
McSweeney's Issue 2: Blues/Jazz Odyssey (1999) — Contributor — 70 copies
Brooklyn Noir 2: The Classics (2005) — Contributor — 70 copies
Intersections: The Sycamore Hill Anthology (1995) — Contributor — 65 copies
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Omnibus (2015) — Contributor, some editions — 65 copies
Brooklyn Was Mine (2008) — Contributor — 63 copies
Supermen!: The First Wave Of Comic Book Heroes 1936-1941 (2009) — Introduction — 63 copies
The Late American Novel: Writers on the Future of Books (2011) — Contributor — 62 copies
McSweeney's Issue 42 (McSweeney's Quarterly Concern): Multiples (2013) — Translator/Contributor — 61 copies
Fridays at Enrico's (2012) 61 copies
Three novels (1961) — Introduction, some editions — 60 copies
Lethal Kisses: 18 Tales of Sex, Horror, and Revenge (1996) — Contributor, some editions — 54 copies
In Dreams (1992) — Contributor — 52 copies
Beyond Suspicion (2006) — Foreword, some editions — 52 copies
McSweeney's Issue 50 (McSweeney's Quarterly Concern) (2017) — Contributor — 50 copies
Bestial Noise: The Tin House Fiction Reader (2003) — Contributor — 49 copies
McSweeney's Issue 44 (McSweeney's Quarterly Concern) (2013) — Contributor — 48 copies
Universe 2 (1992) — Contributor — 45 copies
Crucified Dreams (2011) — Contributor — 39 copies
Isaac Asimov's Cyberdreams (1994) — Contributor — 39 copies
Dangerous Games (2007) — Contributor — 37 copies
Isaac Asimov's Father's Day (2001) — Contributor — 33 copies
Future Sports (2002) — Contributor — 31 copies
Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (2011) — Contributor — 29 copies
Kafkaesque: Stories Inspired by Franz Kafka (2011) — Contributor — 28 copies
Fetish: An Anthology (1998) — Contributor — 25 copies
Super Stories of Heroes & Villains (2013) — Contributor — 23 copies
The Savage Humanists (2008) — Contributor — 22 copies
The Complete Short Stories (2021) — Introduction, some editions — 15 copies
Asimov's Science Fiction: Vol. 17, No. 14 [December 1993] (1993) — Contributor — 15 copies
Asimov's Science Fiction: Vol. 33, No. 6 [June 2009] (1909) — Contributor — 12 copies
Gigantic Worlds (2015) — Contributor — 11 copies
Black Clock 21 (2016) — Contributor — 4 copies
Andy Warhol at Christie's: Paintings and Works on Paper (2012) — Contributor — 4 copies
Fantasy Magazine, Issue 54 (September 2011) (2011) — Contributor — 3 copies
The Wood Duck [short story] — Narrator, some editions — 3 copies
Supernovæ (1993) — Contributor — 2 copies
Millemondi Inverno 1996 — Contributor — 2 copies
The New Yorker Science Fiction Issue 2012, June 4 & 11 (2012) — Contributor — 2 copies
Black Clock 1 (2004) — Contributor — 2 copies

Tagged

20th century (376) American (362) American literature (478) anthology (1,395) Brooklyn (274) classic (179) classics (254) collection (150) comics (180) crime (216) detective (210) ebook (279) essays (487) fantasy (570) fiction (6,426) first edition (202) gothic (300) horror (749) Kindle (192) Library of America (183) literature (540) McSweeney's (175) murder (171) music (191) mystery (952) New York (301) noir (169) non-fiction (389) novel (961) own (199) post-apocalyptic (146) read (624) science fiction (2,406) sf (541) short stories (1,665) signed (202) to-read (3,284) Tourette's Syndrome (175) unread (376) USA (190)

Common Knowledge

Legal name
Lethem, Jonathan Allen
Birthdate
1964-02-19
Gender
male
Nationality
USA
Birthplace
Brooklyn, New York, USA
Places of residence
Berkeley, California, USA
Berwick, Maine, USA
Education
High School of Music and Art, New York
Bennington College (Art)
Occupations
bookstore clerk
professor
novelist
essayist
short story writer
Relationships
Jackson, Shelley (wife|divorced)
Lethem, Mara Faye (sister)
Organizations
Pomona College
Awards and honors
MacArthur Fellowship (2005)
Short biography
Author pronounced his surname "LEE-thum" on the audio book edition of You Don't Love Me Yet

Members

Reviews

Gun, with Occasional Music remained on my shelves decades after my first reading. I did not recall specifics, but the premise remained enticing, probably in much the same way I initially was persuaded to buy it. Lethem's plot and dialogue follow the gumshoe trope of distracting the reader: they carried me along effortlessly, the banter and interactions among characters amusing, the clues and case developments holding my attention.

There was nothing to it. The Super Chief was on time, as it almost always is, and the subject was as easy to spot as a kangaroo in a dinner jacket.

The setting, meantime, works on a parallel track: a future dystopia, unclear how far in the future, unstated but presumably our own United States. Like the Chandler epigraph, Lethem does well not to say too much about it, nor about his world except in dribs and drabs. This layer of textual commentary rides shotgun while the shamus goes about his rounds, sketching out the generic reality the detective lives in, and later, the one it evolves into. The sci-fi alternative reality starts out amusingly different from our own, takes a turn, and ends up feeling uncomfortably familiar.

It's a quick read, the barest suggestion of an alien landscape, and all in all, worth keeping in my library for another couple decades.
… (more)
5 vote
Flagged
elenchus | 63 other reviews | Nov 11, 2023 |
I read about half of this novel and then just gave up. It's about a white boy living in mostly-black Brooklyn in the 1970s. It's a coming of age story but it was just too slow and boring to devote any more time to. The premise and characters were interesting but some plot would have been nice.
 
Flagged
technodiabla | 65 other reviews | Nov 9, 2023 |
What was it like to grow up on the mean streets of Brooklyn in the 70's? This work of autofiction by Jonathan Lethem is an appealing and nostalgic look backward to that time and place. If the novel has any structure to speak of, it tends to follow a group of kids from their pre-teen years when racial differences were not apparent into their pre-teen times, characterized by "the dance" and the emergence of racial and sexual awareness. The book finishes with a nostalgic look backward by the characters as adults with special emphasis on the gentrification craze and what was lost by so-called progress.

Lethem's writing is a little like jazz. The narrative tends to jump around a lot but is never far from humor and irony. One is unsure who the narrator is or what to make of the short vignettes other than as ways to provide the reader with a general feel for things. He succeeds at capturing the humanity of his characters, even the hoodlums, but one would have to look elsewhere for the kind of coherent plot evident in other coming-of-age novels set in rough neighborhoods (e.g., Douglas Stuart's Glasgow).
… (more)
 
Flagged
ozzer | 1 other review | Oct 28, 2023 |
This book contains some interesting, and sometimes disturbing, vignettes about childhood and the inequities of race, but the narrator's "knowing" voice is both irritating and distancing. Recommended for libraries in Brooklyn only as a historical time piece.
½
 
Flagged
librarianarpita | 1 other review | Oct 13, 2023 |

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Farel Dalrymple Illustrator, Contributor
Bill Kartalopoulos Series editor
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Edna O'Brien Contributor
Alain Finkielkraut Contributor
Otto Penzler Series editor
Cornell Woolrich Contributor
Kelly Link Contributor
Anna Kavan Contributor
Karen Joy Fowler Contributor
Shirley Jackson Contributor
Valentine Worth Contributor
Oliver Sacks Contributor
David Grand Contributor
Edmund White Contributor
Thomas Palmer Contributor
Haruki Murakami Contributor
Vladimir Nabokov Contributor
Flann O'Brien Contributor
Geoffrey O'Brien Contributor
Steve Erickson Contributor
Walker Percy Contributor
Dennis Potter Contributor
Christopher Priest Contributor
Robert Sheckley Contributor
Lawrence Shainberg Contributor
Brian Fawcett Contributor
Russell Hoban Contributor
Jorge Luis Borges Contributor
L. J. Davis Contributor
Thomas M. Disch Contributor
Philip K. Dick Contributor
Donald Barthelme Contributor
Martin Amis Contributor
Julio Cortázar Contributor
Raymond Pettibon Contributor, Cover artist
Gary Panter Illustrator
R. Sikoryak Contributor
Matthew Thurber Contributor
Ron Regé Jr. Contributor
Erik Nebel Contributor
Anders Nilsen Contributor
Gabrielle Bell Contributor
Josh Bayer Contributor
David Sandlin Contributor
Diane Obomsawin Contributor
Alabaster Contributor
Rosaire Appel Contributor
Mat Brinkman Contributor
Ed Piskor Contributor
Peter Bagge Contributor
Ben Duncan Contributor
Henriette Valium Contributor
Anya Ulinich Contributor
Jesse Jacobs Contributor
Jules Feiffer Contributor
Noel Freibert Contributor
Julia Gfrörer Contributor
A. Degen Contributor
Gina Wynbrandt Contributor
Kevin Hooyman Contributor
Eleanor Davis Contributor
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Cole Closser Contributor
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Robert Hinderliter Contributor
Sharon Hunt Contributor
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Arthur Klepchukov Contributor
Harley Jane Kozak Contributor
Jared Lipof Contributor
Mark Mayer Contributor
Jennifer McMahon Contributor
Joyce Carol Oates Contributor
Brian Panowich Contributor
Tonya D. Price Contributor
Suzanne Proulx Contributor
Martina Testa Translator
Amy C. King Cover designer
Steve Buscemi Narrator
Gary Isaacs Cover artist
Ville Keynäs Translator
Michael Koelsch Cover artist
Mark Deakins Narrator
Miriam Rosenbloom Cover designer
John Gall Cover designer
Shelley Jackson Cover artist
Grant Faint Cover artist
Ben Wiseman Cover designer
gray318 Cover designer
M. Testa Translator

Statistics

Works
102
Also by
105
Members
22,323
Popularity
#952
Rating
3.8
Reviews
581
ISBNs
371
Languages
17
Favorited
95
Touchstones
546

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