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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780375724831
ISBN number: 0375724834
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 336
Printing Date: October 24, 2000
Publishing house: Vintage
Release Date: October 24, 2000
Sale Popularity Level: 17414
Studio: Vintage
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
From America's most inventive novelist, Jonathan Lethem, comes this compelling and compulsive riff on the classic detective novel.
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.
Amazon.com Review:
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
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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You might think a writer could not construct a brilliantly-worded, completely engaging detective story centering around a protagonist with Tourette syndrome. You'd be wrong. Lethem is a brilliant author who writes books you just can't set down once you have been lucky (or informed) enough to pick one up. Lethem writes about Brooklyn as Dennis Lehane (e.g. Gone, Baby, Gone (Harper Fiction)) writes about Boston---with the authority of experience. In regard to what Lethem says he loves most of books are "the mysterious movements of characters and situations and the emotions that accompany those movements." THAT is why you read Lethem. Because his writing is true to his passion and it makes his books incredibly entertaining and intriguing.
Rated by buyers 
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this book is so fresh and hectic,i enjoy reading it immensely.
a unique detective book.
Rated by buyers -
This is a great novel, providing a fresh take on the detective genre. Lead character Lionel Essrog has Tourrette's, and Tourrette's has surely got him. He's a great narrator for this sensitive tale of mentorship lost and found. The movie rights have been acquired, and they will have to adapt it considerably, so don't settle for that. Read it first, and get all the fun of Lionel's herky-jerky narration, twitches and all.
Rated by buyers -
This is the very first work I have read by Lethem, and now plan to read more by this author. The main character--though there are many, well-developed and interesting personages who populate this mystery novel--is unique in my experience: he suffers from Tourette's Syndrome, a real-life affliction that causes uncontrollable tics, compulsive repetition, and verbal outbursts. Much of the novel reflects and is influenced by this important aspect of the protagonist, but he is not simply a freak; Lethem's deft hand renders for us someone who is able, in his twitching sort of way, to not only craft a life but to conduct dangerous detective work on behalf of a murdered friend and former employer.
The plot line is not an afterthought, either; multiple strands gradually achieve interwoven clarity, resulting in a satisfying--if somewhat bittersweet--resolution at the end. This is an entirely satisfying read on the basis of the writing itself; it will be all the more interesting if you are a fan of mysteries (I'm not).
Rated by buyers -
This book had fabulous characters, a suspenseful, complicated plot, and wonderful writing. I often laughed aloud and read sections aloud to my husband. So imaginative, creative, and compelling. I'd give it another star if I could!
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