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Motherless Brooklyn Paperback – October 24, 2000
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"A half-satirical cross between a literary novel and a hard-boiled crime story narrated by an amateur detective with Tourette's syndrome.... The dialogue crackles with caustic hilarity.... Unexpectedly moving." —The Boston Globe
Brooklyn's very own self-appointed Human Freakshow, Lionel Essrog is an orphan whose Tourettic impulses drive him to bark, count, and rip apart our language in startling and original ways. Together with three veterans of the St. Vincent's Home for Boys, he works for small-time mobster Frank Minna's limo service cum detective agency. Life without Frank Minna, the charismatic King of Brooklyn, would be unimaginable, so who cares if the tasks he sets them are, well, not exactly legal.
But when Frank is fatally stabbed, one of Lionel's colleagues lands in jail, the other two vie for his position, and the victim's widow skips town. Lionel's world is suddenly topsy-turvy, and this outcast who has trouble even conversing attempts to untangle the threads of the case while trying to keep the words straight in his head.
Motherless Brooklyn is a brilliantly original, captivating homage to the classic detective novel by one of the most acclaimed writers of his generation.
- Print length311 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherVintage
- Publication dateOctober 24, 2000
- Dimensions5.2 x 0.73 x 8 inches
- ISBN-100375724834
- ISBN-13978-0375724831
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"The best novel of the year. . . . Utterly original and deeply moving." —Esquire
"Philip Marlowe would blush. And tip his fedora." —Newsweek
"Finding out whodunit is interesting enough, but it's more fun watching Lethem unravel the mysteries of his Tourettic creation. In this case, it takes one trenchant wordsmith to know another." —Time
"Immerses us in the mind's dense thicket, a place where words split and twine in an ever-deepening tangle." —The New York Times Book Review
"Who but Jonathan Lethem would attempt a half-satirical cross between a literary novel and a hard-boiled crime story narrated by an amateur detective with Tourette's syndrome?...The dialogue crackles with caustic hilarity...Jonathan Lethem is a verbal performance artisit...Unexpectedly moving." —The Boston Globe
"With one unique and well-imagined character, Jonathan Lethem has turned a genre on its ear. He doesn't just push the envelope, he gives it a swift kick... A tour de force." —The Denver Post
"Wonderfully inventive, slightly absurdist... [Motherless Brooklyn] is funny and sly, clever, compelling, and endearing." —USA Today
From the Inside Flap
Lionel Essrog is Brooklyn's very own self-appointed Human Freakshow, an orphan whose Tourettic impulses drive him to bark, count, and rip apart our language in startling and original ways. Together with three veterans of the St. Vincent's Home for Boys, he works for small-time mobster Frank Minna's limo service cum detective agency. Life without Frank Minna, the charismatic King of Brooklyn, would be unimaginable, so who cares if the tasks he sets them are, well, not exactly legal. But when Frank is fatally stabbed, one of Lionel's colleagues lands in jail, the other two vie for his position, and the victim's widow skips town. Lionel's world is suddenly topsy-turvy, and this outcast who has trouble even conversing attempts to untangle the threads of the case while trying to keep the words straight in his head. Motherless Brooklyn is a brilliantly original homage to the classic detective novel by one of the most acclaimed writers of his generation.
From the Back Cover
Lionel Essrog is Brooklyn's very own self-appointed Human Freakshow, an orphan whose Tourettic impulses drive him to bark, count, and rip apart our language in startling and original ways. Together with three veterans of the St. Vincent's Home for Boys, he works for small-time mobster Frank Minna's limo service cum detective agency. Life without Frank Minna, the charismatic King of Brooklyn, would be unimaginable, so who cares if the tasks he sets them are, well, not exactly legal. But when Frank is fatally stabbed, one of Lionel's colleagues lands in jail, the other two vie for his position, and the victim's widow skips town. Lionel's world is suddenly topsy-turvy, and this outcast who has trouble even conversing attempts to untangle the threads of the case while trying to keep the words straight in his head. Motherless Brooklyn is a brilliantly original homage to the classic detective novel by one of the most acclaimed writers of his generation.
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Context is everything. Dress me up and see. I'm a carnival barker, an auctioneer, a downtown performance artist, a speaker in tongues, a senator drunk on filibuster. I've got Tourette's. My mouth won't quit, though mostly I whisper or subvocalize like I'm reading aloud, my Adam's apple bobbing, jaw muscle beating like a miniature heart under my cheek, the noise suppressed, the words escaping silently, mere ghosts of themselves, husks empty of breath and tone. (If I were a Dick Tracy villain, I'd have to be Mumbles.) In this diminished form the words rush out of the cornucopia of my brain to course over the surface of the world, tickling reality like fingers on piano keys. Caressing, nudging. They're an invisible army on a peacekeeping mission, a peaceable horde. They mean no harm. They placate, interpret, massage. Everywhere they're smoothing down imperfections, putting hairs in place, putting ducks in a row, replacing divots. Counting and polishing the silver. Patting old ladies gently on the behind, eliciting a giggle. Only--here's the rub--when they find too much perfection, when the surface is already buffed smooth, the ducks already orderly, the old ladies complacent, then my little army rebels, breaks into the stores. Reality needs a prick here and there, the carpet needs a flaw. My words begin plucking at threads nervously, seeking purchase, a weak point, a vulnerable ear. That's when it comes, the urge to shout in the church, the nursery, the crowded movie house. It's an itch at first. Inconsequential. But that itch is soon a torrent behind a straining dam. Noah's flood. That itch is my whole life. Here it comes now. Cover your ears. Build an ark.
"Eat me!" I scream.
* * *
"Maufishful," said Gilbert Coney in response to my outburst, not even turning his head. I could barely make out the words--"My mouth is full"--both truthful and a joke, lame. Accustomed to my verbal ticcing, he didn't usually bother to comment. Now he nudged the bag of White Castles in my direction on the car seat, crinkling the paper. "Stuffinyahole."
Coney didn't rate any special consideration from me. "Eatmeeatmeeatme," I shrieked again, letting off more of the pressure in my head. Then I was able to concentrate. I helped myself to one of the tiny burgers. Unwrapping it, I lifted the top of the bun to examine the grid of holes in the patty, the slime of glistening cubed onions. This was another compulsion. I always had to look inside a White Castle, to appreciate the contrast of machine-tooled burger and nubbin of fried goo. kaos and control. Then I did more or less as Gilbert had suggested--pushed it into my mouth whole. The ancient slogan Buy 'em by the sack humming deep in my head, jaw working to grind the slider into swallowable chunks, I turned back to stare out the window at the house.
Food really mellows me out.
We were putting a stakeout on 109 East Eighty-fourth Street, a lone town house pinned between giant doorman apartment buildings, in and out of the foyers of which bicycle deliverymen with bags of hot Chinese flitted like tired moths in the fading November light. It was dinner hour in Yorktown. Gilbert Coney and I had done our part to join the feast, detouring up into Spanish Harlem for the burgers. There's only one White Castle left in Manhattan, on East 103rd. It's not as good as some of the suburban outlets. You can't watch them prepare your order anymore, and to tell the truth I've begun to wonder if they're microwaving the buns instead of steaming them. Alas. Taking our boodle of thusly compromised sliders and fries back downtown, we double-parked in front of the target address until a spot opened up. It only took a couple of minutes, though by that time the doormen on either side had made us--made us as out-of-place and nosy anyway. We were driving the Lincoln, which didn't have the "T"-series license plates or stickers or anything else to identify it as a Car Service vehicle. And we were large men, me and Gilbert. They probably thought we were cops. It didn't matter. We chowed and watched.
Not that we knew what we were doing there. Minna had sent us without saying why, which was usual enough, even if the address wasn't. Minna Agency errands mostly stuck us in Brooklyn, rarely far from Court Street, in fact. Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill together made a crisscrossed game board of Frank Minna's alliances and enmities, and me and Gil Coney and the other Agency Men were the markers--like Monopoly pieces, I sometimes thought, tin automobiles or terriers (not top hats, surely)--to be moved around that game board. Here on the Upper East Side we were off our customary map, Automobile and Terrier in Candyland--or maybe in the study with Colonel Mustard.
"What's that sign?" said Coney. He pointed with his glistening chin at the town house doorway. I looked.
" 'Yorkville Zendo,' " I read off the bronze plaque on the door, and my fevered brain processed the words and settled with interest on the odd one. "Eat me Zendo!" I muttered through clenched teeth.
Gilbert took it, rightly, as my way of puzzling over the unfamiliarity. "Yeah, what's that Zendo? What's that?"
"Maybe like Zen," I said.
"I don't know from that."
"Zen like Buddhism," I said. "Zen master, you know."
"Zen master?"
"You know, like kung-fu master."
"Hrrph," said Coney.
And so after this brief turn at investigation we settled back into our complacent chewing. Of course after any talk my brain was busy with at least some low-level version of echolalia salad: Don't know from Zendo, Ken-like Zung Fu, Feng Shui master, Fungo bastard, Zen masturbation, Eat me! But it didn't require voicing, not now, not with White Castles to unscrew, inspect and devour. I was on my third. I fit it into my mouth, then glanced up at the doorway of One-oh-nine, jerking my head as if the building had been sneaking up on me. Coney and the other Minna Agency operatives loved doing stakeouts with me, since my compulsiveness forced me to eyeball the site or mark in question every thirty seconds or so, thereby saving them the trouble of swiveling their necks. A similar logic explained my popularity at wiretap parties--give me a key list of trigger words to listen for in a conversation and I'd think about nothing else, nearly jumping out of my clothes at hearing the slightest hint of one, while the same task invariably drew anyone else toward blissful sleep.
While I chewed on number three and monitored the uneventful Yorkville Zendo entrance my hands busily frisked the paper sack of Castles, counting to be sure I had three remaining. We'd purchased a bag of twelve, and not only did Coney know I had to have my six, he also knew he was pleasing me, tickling my Touretter's obsessive-compulsive instincts, by matching my number with his own. Gilbert Coney was a big lug with a heart of gold, I guess. Or maybe he was just trainable. My tics and obsessions kept the other Minna Men amused, but also wore them out, made them weirdly compliant and complicit.
A woman turned from the sidewalk onto the stoop of the town house and went up to the door. Short dark hair, squarish glasses, that was all I saw before her back was to us. She wore a pea coat. Sworls of black hair at her neck, under the boyish haircut. Twenty-five maybe, or maybe eighteen.
"She's going in," said Coney.
"Look, she's got a key," I said.
"What's Frank want us to do?"
"Just watch. Take a note. What time is it?"
Coney crumpled another Castle wrapper and pointed at the glove compartment. "You take a note. It's six forty-five."
I popped the compartment--the click-release of the plastic latch was a delicious hollow sound, which I knew I'd want to repeat, at least approximately--and found the small notebook inside. GIRL, I wrote, then crossed it out. WOMAN, HAIR, GLASSES, KEY. 6:45. The notes were to myself, since I only had to be able to report verbally to Minna. If that. For all we knew, he might want us out here to scare someone, or to wait for some delivery. I left the notebook beside the Castles on the seat between us and slapped the compartment door shut again, then delivered six redundant slaps to the same spot to ventilate my brain's pressure by reproducing the hollow thump I'd liked. Six was a lucky number tonight, six burgers, six forty-five. So six slaps.
* * *
For me, counting and touching things and repeating words are all the same activity. Tourette's is just one big lifetime of tag, really. The world (or my brain--same thing) appoints me it, again and again. So I tag back.
Can it do otherwise? If you've ever been it you know the answer.
Product details
- Publisher : Vintage (October 24, 2000)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 311 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0375724834
- ISBN-13 : 978-0375724831
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.2 x 0.73 x 8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #149,418 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #4,645 in Amateur Sleuths
- #4,957 in Memoirs (Books)
- #10,579 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Jonathan Lethem was born in New York and attended Bennington College.
He is the author of seven novels including Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn, which was named Novel of the Year by Esquire and won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Salon Book Award, as well as the Macallan Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger.
He has also written two short story collections, a novella and a collection of essays, edited The Vintage Book of Amnesia, guest-edited The Year's Best Music Writing 2002, and was the founding fiction editor of Fence magazine.
His writings have appeared in the New Yorker, Rolling Stone, McSweeney's and many other periodicals.
He lives in Brooklyn, New York
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the writing quality beautiful and compelling. They also appreciate the humor, wordplay, and characterization. They describe the characters as well-developed, lovable, and sad. Readers also appreciate great insight and believeable characters. Opinions are mixed on the storyline, with some finding it exciting and moving, while others say it's awkward and takes a long time to read.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the writing quality of the book beautiful, authentic, and believeable. They also say the story is well paced, exciting, and compelling. Customers also say that the dialogue is outstanding and the story intensely human.
"This is my second time reading this beautifully written novel, and the experience was richer than the first time around...." Read more
"...The story is well paced and exciting. Lionel is a whip-smart and engaging hero made sympathetic by the compulsions beyond his control...." Read more
"...So why three stars? Well — ultimately, it’s still piffle. Lethem is a skilled writer, capable of tossing off a memorable phrase or conjuring up a..." Read more
"...Compelling and fluid writing style, despite the jerky, disjointed character of the main protagonist...." Read more
Customers find the characters in the book well developed.
"...Flawless prose, dialogue, and plotting. One of the oddest but most heroic protagonists in contemporary fiction." Read more
"...The story is well paced and exciting. Lionel is a whip-smart and engaging hero made sympathetic by the compulsions beyond his control...." Read more
"...Large cast of colorful characters? Check. Snappy bitten-off dialogue with lots of local references? Check. A good girl and a bad girl? Check...." Read more
"...as crime fiction, by the way, is good: populated with believable characters and dialogue, a suitably tangled plot, and honest, satisfying..." Read more
Customers find the book has a lot of humor and funny moments. They also say the author is skilled and capable of tossing off a memorable phrase or conjuring up a visual image. Readers describe the book as an innovative genre-defying novel, a good detective story, and a wonderful whimsical alternative to the hard-boiled detective story.
"...Lethem is a skilled writer, capable of tossing off a memorable phrase or conjuring up a visual image, but his talents here are in the service of a..." Read more
"...tics, his jokes, his personality makes this novel all it is: serious, humorous, mysterious - a good romp and a good read!" Read more
"...Now, I’m debating on watching the movie at all.It’s a detective novel, but I didn’t feel as much suspense or surprise as I would’ve..." Read more
"I loved this innovative genre-defying novel...." Read more
Customers find the book compelling, with a great insight into what it means to have a major problem. They also appreciate the author's witty and smart writing style, describing the motivations, interactions, and dialog. Readers also describe the book as very deep, serious, and mysterious.
"...The story is well paced and exciting. Lionel is a whip-smart and engaging hero made sympathetic by the compulsions beyond his control...." Read more
"...I found this book to be, to use a cliché, a “page turner”. Compelling and fluid writing style, despite the jerky, disjointed character of the main..." Read more
"...and the way in which his tic constantly manifests itself is totally convincing and lifts this book into a special category...." Read more
"...His tics, his jokes, his personality makes this novel all it is: serious, humorous, mysterious - a good romp and a good read!" Read more
Customers find the characters lovable, sympathetic, poignant, and appealing. They also say the book is a poignant love letter.
"...Seriously? Yes, and he is smart, engaging, so human and funny...." Read more
"...It's entertaining (there's even action scenes), smart, sad but funny and pretty deep. I couldn't put it down...." Read more
"...character has Tourette's Syndrome and is very intelligent and appealing...." Read more
"...While the plot didn't quite have me on the edge of my seat, the loving, finely drawn characterizations of Lionel, the narrator, and his struggle..." Read more
Customers find the book original, refreshing, and genre-bending. They also say it's engagingly modern and keeps them hooked.
"...my second time reading this beautifully written novel, and the experience was richer than the first time around...." Read more
"...The story is well paced and exciting. Lionel is a whip-smart and engaging hero made sympathetic by the compulsions beyond his control...." Read more
"...Motherless Brooklyn is delirious, overabundant, delightful creativity, with a strong, supple spine of research on Tourette's Syndrome to render..." Read more
"...through a convoluted tale that is both familiar in tone but engagingly modern...." Read more
Customers are mixed about the storyline. Some find it exciting, quirky, suspenseful, and entertaining. They also say the gimmick is nice and there are very funny moments throughout the book. However, others say the story is a little awkward, boring, and takes a relatively long time to read.
"...is good: populated with believable characters and dialogue, a suitably tangled plot, and honest, satisfying resolutions).Read this novel...." Read more
"...Not. The plot drags. The “zany” shtick — Buddhists! Monks! Japanese executives! — falls flat. Ok, cool, he dreamed it up, but what for?..." Read more
"...his personality makes this novel all it is: serious, humorous, mysterious - a good romp and a good read!" Read more
"...There were very funny moments throughout the book as this protagonist struggled to solve a crime and to somehow keep his Tourette symptoms under..." Read more
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Top reviews from the United States
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When I read the book, I was quite startled at the stark differences in the book and the movie. Lionel is a detective and an orphan who works for low-level, charismatic Frank Minna along with three other orphans from St. Vincent’s Home for Boys. Frank is murdered, and Frank’s widow skips town to unknown destinations quickly after Frank’s death. Lionel is set on solving Frank’s murder. That is where the story similarities end. (I am going to focus on the book from here.)
The book was written in 1999 and is set in that present day. The book delves deeply into Lionel’s childhood, giving us deeper understanding of Lionel’s Tourette’s and compulsions. It also makes Lionel a more lonely and alienated man living in a society that does not understand him and consistently underestimates him.
As the story unfolds, tension grows between Lionel and the other member’s of “Frank’s Boys”. Lionel doesn’t trust anyone but himself, and he sets about to solve this murder on his own. The investigation takes him throughout New York, and puts him in the position Frank shielded him from: interacting with people and exposing his tics.
The story is well paced and exciting. Lionel is a whip-smart and engaging hero made sympathetic by the compulsions beyond his control. Readers feel his loneliness and isolation, which makes us eager to see him succeed in his quest, as though that victory will give him some relief from that solitude.
I loved this story. I loved the characters, the tension and New York in the late 90s. It was not at all what I expected, but everything I wanted from a true detective novel.
Then he throws in the kitchen sink. Japanese megafirms, Zen Buddhism, Prince... and a narrator with Tourette’s syndrome.
Does it work? Yes, if you want a fast read that’s well-written, with a likable protagonist. If you are interested in Tourette’s, for any reason. I have no idea if the speech and behaviors — the compulsive touching, the flapping hands, the triggers that start or end an attack — are realistic. They are certainly convincing.
So why three stars? Well — ultimately, it’s still piffle. Lethem is a skilled writer, capable of tossing off a memorable phrase or conjuring up a visual image, but his talents here are in the service of a lesser god. In other words, it’s genre. Colorful cardboard is still cardboard, which is how his characters start and end. Snappy dialogue out of the side of the mouth is a convention, just like the cars and the cigarettes and the Italian mama in a tiny slummy kitchen and the sad, incompetent NYPD detective — except that this time he’s African-American, big blow for originality. Not. The plot drags. The “zany” shtick — Buddhists! Monks! Japanese executives! — falls flat. Ok, cool, he dreamed it up, but what for? Zany needs a purpose.
Lethem’s love for the genre and its conventions shines forth from every page, and in many ways is one of the best things about this novel. He loved it; he ached to do it; he did it. For this reader, and I say this with regrets, the effect is like watching a brilliant impersonator. Reading a work of fiction should be something else entirely.
Top reviews from other countries
I think I got Tourette’s by proxy from reading this book.