I wanted to read this before I saw the movie, which came out a few weeks ago. I have always meant to read Jonathan Lethem and now I wish I had started earlier. Born in 1964, he is a generation behind me but he is of the generation of much fiction I love.

Four orphans in pre-gentrified Brooklyn are picked out by small time gangster Frank Minna to do "errands" for his "limo service" and "detective agency." Soon they become Minna's Men, his comrades in crime.

Lionel Essrog, one of those orphans, feels he is the closest to Minna. His nickname, created by Frank, is Freakshow because he suffers from Tourette's Syndrome. His barking, counting and outbursts of fractured language, make him one of the most endearing orphans in literature. I am a sucker for orphan stories. It all started for me with Anne of Green Gables and The Secret Garden.

When one of Frank's capers goes wrong ending in his murder, Lionel's obsessive nature drags him into real detective work. He MUST find who murdered the only father figure he has known.

The scene of the evening Minna is killed became seared into my mind. According to my husband, who has already seen the movie and is now reading the book, it is reproduced exactly at the beginning of the film.

So yes, this is a riff on the classic detective novel, but actually it is a coming of age tale as great as David Copperfield, a tale of a city as gritty as John Fante's Ask the Dust, as intricately plotted as anything by Raymond Chandler, all combined to blow your mind.

Lethem does it with a scintillating display of language that goes beyond words. He can write six really intelligent things in one paragraph without ever losing his rhythm.

Now to see the movie and better yet to read as much as Lethem as I can over the coming months.

I watched the movie first which was a mistake. The book is much better. One can see why it won so many awards. The story moves in different directions and is unpredictable with quirky, original characters.

I enjoyed this story quite a bit. I have no idea if the main character, Lionel Essrog, is portrayed accurately or well, since he has Tourette's Syndrome, but it's interesting, as well as funny and sad at times. It's a detective story, a spoof perhaps, but not an obnoxious send-up. The genre's cliches are not included for cheap laughs; they are put to good use.

Lionel's boss is murdered at the beginning. And then they're off and running! Brooklyn, a Russian killer, mafioso, small time hoods, Japanese Zen, Japanese corporations and of all things, Maine and the Artist Formerly Know as Prince.

I don't think the book quite lives up to the claims of some of the critics. It was not a deep meditation about language. That was fine with me, I guess. There's reflection, but for the most part, it does not overwhelm the plot.

Other reviewers apparently saw what was happening from a mile away. Hey, I haven't read a lot of mysteries. The climax was not perfect, the mystery was not an enigma wrapped in a wet noodle or whatever, but it was enjoyable, except next time, Lionel should get the girl.

Lethem is a master at hip, funny, serious, genre mash-up fiction, and this (IMHO) is his best so far. It's a soft-hearted, hard-boiled, Zen-infused, satirical noir, narrated by a small-time detective with Tourette's. Thankfully this doesn't come across as gimmicky, which it would in less capable hands. The narrator, Lionel Essrog (now there's a Pynchonesque name), uses his condition to think about, well, language itself, as his outbursts often riff on what they're supposed to convey. Sure, the plot itself is pretty formulaic, but that's the point--these characters are trapped in their own genre conventions just as Essrog is trapped in his linguistic ones, which gives his outbursts a heightened sense of liberation and freedom.

10/2012

As always, impressed at Lethem's blend of genre and lit (or something like it). I love his writing because he's never poetic or writerly, seems influenced by a lot of the same old stuff I like. I didn't find this Moving like the jacket blurb promised, but I certainly didn't find it boring either.

3.5 Stars
What a unique interpretation of a mystery novel featuring an amateur detective with Tourettes.

Lionel Essorg grew up in St Vincent's Home for orphans and quickly gets in with a group of Italian guys, with Frank Minna playing the father figure. Frank has a car service company and a secret detective agency within. Frank unexpectedly gets stabbed and that leaves the misfit pack of orphans to figure out what happened. Lionel is such a well drawn character, and one you want to root for. I truly enjoyed reading this novel from his perspective. I had some minor issues with the story, but overall this one stands the test of time, it was originally published in the 1990's and it was fun to live during that timeframe in Brooklyn. Solving crime without technology is always something that interests me.

Overall, a well written novel with wonderfully developed characters, flaws and all. One you could certainly revisit again and would make for some good discussion. Now, I can see the movie.

Tell me to do it muffin ass …. to rest the lust of a loaftomb! …. Barnamum Pierogi lug!

Meet Lionel Essrog. Viable Guessfrog, Lionel Deathclam, Liable Guesscog, Ironic Pissclam. Lionel is a Minna Man. A full fledged Hardly Boy… A freakshow… A member of Motherless Brooklyn.

I love Lionel. Not in my special groupie way. Hold your hats here; I might be growing as a person. Nah. I just really love Lionel’s brain. Peirogi kumquat sushiphone! Domestic marshmallow ghost! Insatiable Mallomar!

Did I mention Lionel has Tourette’s? I’ve only met one person with Tourette’s and he wasn’t as lyrical as Lionel. He was a neurology resident. He used to yip and scurry down the hall of the hospital. You always knew when he was on the floor. One time I was in the room with him and he squirted some of that hand soap onto his palm and mid squirt his Tourette’s kicked in and some of the foamy soap ended up in a nurse’s hair ala Something about Mary and we didn’t tell her. (We don’t like nurses very much.) Anyway, that’s my Tourette’s story… on to Lionel and the Minna Men.

Motherless Brooklyn wasn’t one of those books that I couldn’t put down, but it was one that will stick with me. Not just because it gave me such lines as Trend the decreased! Mend the retreats! or spread by means it finds, fed in springs by mimes, bled by mangy spies or an insight to what living with Tourette’s might be like but because it’s so human. It’s gritty and what I imagine Brooklyn to be like. I don’t picture quaint neighborhoods, I see steel and dirt and warehouses and underpasses and guys hanging out on stoops with greased back hair and… (I’m not saying this is accurate, I’m saying this is what I see and this is what Lethem gifts me with.) The Minna Men, 4 bedraggled orphans who are taken under by Frank Minna, a two bit hustlin’, Philip Marlowe wannabe. There’s Tony, the quintessential mobster in the making. Danny, the too-cool-for-school b-ball player who is more attitude than words. Gilbert, the brawny, mouthy one and then, there’s Lionel. I loved the sense of these guys. The classic Lost Boys.

Lethem does a great job of fleshing these guys out, taking emotions like guilt and concepts like conspiracies and waxing touretticly poetic (yeah, so I made that up…sue me):

Is guilt a species of Tourette’s? Maybe. It has a touchy quality, I think, a hint of sweaty fingers. Guilt wants to cover all the bases, be everywhere at once, reach into the past to tweak, neaten, and repair. Guilt like Tourettic utterance flows uselessly, inelegantly from one helpless human to another, contemptuous of perimeters, doomed to me mistaken or refused on delivery.
Guilt, like Tourette’s, tries again, learns nothing.
And the guilty soul, like the Tourettic, wears a kind of clown face---the Smokey Robinson kind, with tear tracks underneath.

Conspiracies are a version of Tourette’s syndrome, the making and tracing of unexpected connections a kind of touchiness, an expression of the yearning to touch the world, kiss it all over with theories, pull it close. Like Tourette’s, all conspiracies are ultimately solipsistic, sufferer and conspirator or theorist overrating his centrality and forever rehearsing a traumatic delight in reaction, attachment and causality, in roads out from the Rome of self.
The second gunman on the grassy knoll wasn’t part of a conspiracy—we Touretters know this to be true. He was ticking, imitating the action that had startled and allured him, the shots fired. It was just his way of saying, Me too! I’m alive! Look here! Replay the film!


I don’t want to get too into the plot; I don’t feel that that’s what makes this book so great...the writing, the wordplay, that’s where it’s at.

3 Stars for Motherless Brooklyn (audiobook) by Jonathan Lethem read by Geoffrey Cantor.

I think this could have been at least a 4 star book for me if it had been half as long. Listening to 10 hours of Tourette’s is a bit much.

Lethem noir told from the perspective a small-time thug with tourette's. If you aren't sold yet, nothing is likely to sell you. It's pretty good.

“La storia della mia vita fino a questo punto:
L’insegnante mi guardò come se fossi pazzo.
L’assistente sociale mi guardò come se fossi pazzo.
Il ragazzo mi guardò come se fossi pazzo e poi mi prese a botte.
La donna mi guardò come se fossi pazzo.
L’agente nero della Omicidi mi guardò come se fossi pazzo.”

(ps. il titolo italiano non è quello originale, che invece sarebbe Brooklyn senza madre)

A parlare è, appunto Testadipazzo, insolito protagonista dell’omonimo romanzo di Lethem.
Lionel, questo il suo vero nome, è un investigatore per copertura ed in realtà un faccendiere per conto di un boss locale. Ed è afflitto dalla sindrome di Tourette, malattia del sistema nervoso che combina vistosi tic motori con compulsioni verbali incontrollabili. Ma quando il boss viene trovato in un cassonetto della spazzatura, Lionel si mette sul serio ad investigare e quello che scopre non è un affare facile da districare. In contrapposizione col detective della omicidi, un uomo dall’aria logora che sembra dire “nemmeno il caffè serve più” Testadipazzo brilla per vitalità e per un bizzarro modo di condurre le sue indagini. In realtà tutto il romanzo, un noir di taglio tradizionale, sembra acquisire vitalità dal suo protagonista, assoluta novità all’interno di una storia narrata con lentezza, che lascia largamente intuire scorci di pensiero Tourette combinati con una logica ossessiva ed un desiderio edipico di uscire a tutti i costi dalla colpa per aver lasciato morire il padre, rappresentato dal mafioso assassinato all’inizio del racconto ed intorno al quale ruota la vita di Lionel e dei suoi collaboratori.
Romanzo piuttosto originale, Testadipazzo esce dai canoni del genere per raccontare in primo luogo la storia di un uomo afflitto da una malattia bizzarra che gli fa rischiare di continuo la vita, ed entra con maestria nel difficile pensiero compulsivo che nel contempo affascina ed atterrisce.
C’è poco altro da aggiungere, in realtà l’originalità, come sempre marchio di fabbrica del lavoro di Lethem, spicca sopra ogni cosa in questo suo romanzo, e l’interesse che il suo protagonista riesce a suscitare trascende anche la storia, che rimane sullo sfondo a motivare un racconto che starebbe in piedi anche da solo.

Lionel Essrog must rank as one of the most original narrators of a novel in contemporary fiction. He deals in good faith with his Tourette's syndrome, gently educating us, amid the harsh and brutal reality of Brooklyn. Essrog is a kind of existential orphan in a motherless city. He is consumed with finding order, patterns, balance, symmetry and controlling urges to scream his innermost sensibilities in public. His friends call him "Freak Show" and yet he has one of the most endearing narrative voices in modern fiction -- gentle, highly intelligent, vulnerable and humane, like Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse Five. Essrog rides through New York's subways noting how they offer a structure and canvass for irrepressible, subterranean human expressions like his. The protagonist seeks and finds the hidden gems of beauty that lie well hidden in the harsh starkness of the city. The characters like the city are original and real with freakish overtones which stop short of stereotypes. The novel is steeped in the language, street culture and underground economy that is Brooklyn. The plot is entertaining, the dialogue is authentic and the octopus joke is hilarious. The author does a great job weaving an intricate plot structure of apparently unconnected forces that come together naturally and masterfully. The word play through Essrog's Tourettic sensibilities were lyrical, poetic and even Joycean in places. I really enjoyed this novel's gritty urban realism and its flashes of real comic wit from a highly talented and inventive writer. This is a great piece of contemporary literature that's a genuine pleasure to read.

Look, we all have prejudices, OK? If you think you don't it's because yours are so firmly ingrained that you've ceased to be able to recognize them. Some people hate the Jews, some people hate the gays, some people hate the Inuit. I, personally, have an irrational dislike of hipster fiction. It's foolish, it's straight bigotry, but there it is. I never made an attempt at Infinite Jest, I crinkle up my nose when I hear Franzen's name mentioned, I don't know Dave Eggers from Adam. Lethem has long been on said list, but this was cheap and there was a quote on the front comparing it to Chandler and I figured, what the hell. The story of an orphaned mook from Central Brooklyn with tourette's syndrome, and his attempts to get retribution for the murder of the man who raised/corrupted him. It's totally serviceable elevated noir, the writing is not bad, the hero's illness is portrayed authentically, there is enough action to keep an audience entertained without tipping over into outright absurdity. Crime is, of course, the most absurd of all of the genres, torn as it is between demanding an extreme sharpness of prose (Chekhov's gun is never more in evidence) while also finding some way to mislead an attentive reader as to the culprit. In the hard-boiled American tradition (Chandler, Hammet, etc) the pacing and the excellent prose are meant to distract the reader from any inconsistencies of plot. More modern noir often utilize an unreliable or, in particular, an incompetent narrator, and to describe the mystery itself in such terms that the reader can't jump ahead of the hero. This sometimes gets a little kitschy (Our hero is blind! Our hero is autistic! Our hero drinks lead paint!) but it works well enough here. I'm not, frankly, altogether clear why this has quite so much critical reverence, being enjoyable but to my mind not altogether more than that. Still, I'll keep my eye out for another Lethem next time I'm hanging around the Strand.