Motherless Brooklyn

An enjoyable take on the hardboiled mystery - familiar enough to feel cozy, but strange enough to feel new. The Tourette's characterizations triggered some of my own tics while reading. ( )

The thing this book does beautifully is to make you feel like you've inhabited a different sort of mind. It's sort of a detective story, but the real appeal is in how you experience the view from behind the eyes of a narrator whose internal (and external) mono/dialogue is so very different from your own. It's lyrical and lovely and playful and sometimes a little heartbreaking. Lethem here takes a familiar genre -- the detective story -- and enlivens it by tweaking the style and replacing (self-consciously) the verbal tics of that genre with the verbal tics of the unusual narrator. I enjoyed this one a lot. It's the third Lethem book I've read, and I figure he's three for three so far. ( )

Really clever writing, no idea how accurate a depiction of tourettes sufferer this is but the protagonist is instantly sympathetic and intriguing which keeps you reading. That and the terrible jokes. ( )

Some books are more about voice than plot. That is the case with Motherless Brooklyn. And for that reason, I feel fortunate to have listened to the audiobook version, which was phenomenally narrated by Geoffrey Cantor with an amazing variety of voices that made each character distinct--but most of all made the Tourette's Syndrome-inflicted narrator a unique, believable voice at the center of a complex web of loyalties and betrayals involving a small time Brooklyn hood, his brother, his wife, some doormen, an all-night Korean convenience store, a Zendo, a huge assassin, Japanese businessmen/monks--well, you get the idea. As in the other book I read by Lethem, he is never short of ideas or imagination. The noir-ish aspects are a bit too self-conscious, as if he doesn't want them to escape the notice of a reader not familiar with the genre. And the story goes on a bit too long, but thanks to the superb narration, it was a rewarding listen. ( )

Some books are more about voice than plot. That is the case with Motherless Brooklyn. And for that reason, I feel fortunate to have listened to the audiobook version, which was phenomenally narrated by Geoffrey Cantor with an amazing variety of voices that made each character distinct--but most of all made the Tourette's Syndrome-inflicted narrator a unique, believable voice at the center of a complex web of loyalties and betrayals involving a small time Brooklyn hood, his brother, his wife, some doormen, an all-night Korean convenience store, a Zendo, a huge assassin, Japanese businessmen/monks--well, you get the idea. As in the other book I read by Lethem, he is never short of ideas or imagination. The noir-ish aspects are a bit too self-conscious, as if he doesn't want them to escape the notice of a reader not familiar with the genre. And the story goes on a bit too long, but thanks to the superb narration, it was a rewarding listen. ( )