Publication
Faber & Faber (2019), Edition: Main - Film tie-in edition, 320 pages
Original publication date
1999-09-14
Collections
Subjects
Awards
Dublin Literary Award (Longlist — 2001)
National Book Critics Circle Award (Finalist — Fiction — 1999)
Crime Writers' Association Awards (Winner — 2000)
Salon Book Award (Fiction — 1999)
CWA Duncan Lawrie Gold Dagger (Winner — Fiction)
Booklist Editor's Choice: Adult Books (Fiction — 1999)
Notable Books List (2000)
Description
Fiction. Literature. HTML: NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM WARNER BROS. STARRING BRUCE WILLIS, EDWARD NORTON, AND WILLEM DAFOE 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 Human Freakshow, an orphan whose Tourettic impulses drive him to bark, count, and rip apart 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, the charismatic King of Brooklyn, would be unimaginable. When Frank is fatally stabbed, Lionel's world is suddenly turned upside-down, 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. A compulsively involving a and totally captivating homage to the classic detective tale..… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member agnesmack
I've been meaning to read something by Jonathan Lethem for a while so when a reading companion thrust Motherless Brooklyn into my hands, I knew it was meant to be.
I first opened this book at around 3 in the morning one night, after finishing up a book that I didn't particularly care for (and
I've heard Lethem described as a unique voice and if this book is anything to go by, that's certainly true. There was quite a motley cast of characters and I was introduced to many memorable fictional folks that I won't soon be forgetting. Most notable, of course, is the protagonist, one Lionel Essrog, who witnesses the murder of his boss / mentor / father figure within the first 10 pages of the book. He spends our remaining time together trying to track down the killer, all while ridiculous hijinks ensue.
When I discovered a few pages in that Essrog has Tourette's, I was a little concerned about how that would be handled. I'm not one who finds it particularly funny to ridicule or sensationalize the disorder of another. My concern was mostly that Mr. Lethem would use Essrog's disorder as a punchline and would simplify his condition into some stupid cliche. Luckily, I was wrong, and while there were plenty of humorous situations that came as a result of his disorder, it did not define him and I felt it was handled in an honest way.
While I did very much enjoy this book and found it to be a fun and fast read, it fell short of being excellent because I never felt completely immersed in the lives of the motherless in Brooklyn, nor was I particularly moved or touched by some of the more emotional scenes.
I would recommend this book to someone who is interested in a unique spin on the classic detective novel and someone who doesn't require an emotional connection in order to love a book.
I first opened this book at around 3 in the morning one night, after finishing up a book that I didn't particularly care for (and
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drinking several tumblers of whiskey). I intended to just read a few pages and call it a night. 25 pages later, I was captivated by the book and had to force myself to crawl into bed.I've heard Lethem described as a unique voice and if this book is anything to go by, that's certainly true. There was quite a motley cast of characters and I was introduced to many memorable fictional folks that I won't soon be forgetting. Most notable, of course, is the protagonist, one Lionel Essrog, who witnesses the murder of his boss / mentor / father figure within the first 10 pages of the book. He spends our remaining time together trying to track down the killer, all while ridiculous hijinks ensue.
When I discovered a few pages in that Essrog has Tourette's, I was a little concerned about how that would be handled. I'm not one who finds it particularly funny to ridicule or sensationalize the disorder of another. My concern was mostly that Mr. Lethem would use Essrog's disorder as a punchline and would simplify his condition into some stupid cliche. Luckily, I was wrong, and while there were plenty of humorous situations that came as a result of his disorder, it did not define him and I felt it was handled in an honest way.
While I did very much enjoy this book and found it to be a fun and fast read, it fell short of being excellent because I never felt completely immersed in the lives of the motherless in Brooklyn, nor was I particularly moved or touched by some of the more emotional scenes.
I would recommend this book to someone who is interested in a unique spin on the classic detective novel and someone who doesn't require an emotional connection in order to love a book.
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LibraryThing member cameling
So you have an orphan with Tourette's Syndrome, not understanding his affliction and being bullied in school. He meets, with 3 other orphans, Frank Minna, a man who takes them under his wing and has them move furniture and things for him.
Over time, they become a team and become known as Minna's
Frank is murdered while Lionel and Gilbert are providing surveillance for him on a property. There are sufficient twists and turns following Lionel's attempt to uncover the murderer of his mentor and friend, Frank Minna, to make this a worthy read.
What I found more interesting was following the mind of a man with Tourette's Syndrome (he finally learns that he has a disability) and the verbal and physical compulsions that he's forced to express, try to harness and endure.
Over time, they become a team and become known as Minna's
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Men and under the guise of a car rental service, they become a detective agency, or so they are led to believe by Frank, and learn how to conduct stake-outs, follow strangers and drive without asking questions. Frank is murdered while Lionel and Gilbert are providing surveillance for him on a property. There are sufficient twists and turns following Lionel's attempt to uncover the murderer of his mentor and friend, Frank Minna, to make this a worthy read.
What I found more interesting was following the mind of a man with Tourette's Syndrome (he finally learns that he has a disability) and the verbal and physical compulsions that he's forced to express, try to harness and endure.
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LibraryThing member colinflipper
I don't think it's very controversial to call this book a modern classic, or to rave about Lethem's ability to write a detective story that both fans and detractors of genre fiction can enjoy. So I don't have much new to say about this excellent and very fun-to-read book.
I do want to mention the
I do want to mention the
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almost physiological effect that Lionel's tics (described in writing) had on me. I'm a pretty fidgety and flinchy person by nature, so the stream of consciousness description of his Tourette's symptoms, starting with stimulus - a word, a sound, a gesture - and then resulting in a flood of repetitions and permutations that eventually overflow Lionel's brain and burst out into his actions, really got me going. Any time I put the book down and stood up to walk across my apartment, I had to fight the urge to shout out 'Eatmebailey!' Show Less
LibraryThing member upstairsgirl
Part cozy mystery, part noir, part bildungsroman, part experiment in the metes and bounds of the English language, Lethem's bizarre, hypnotic, lyrical Motherless Brooklyn is fun to read and hard to put down. Lionel Essrog, an already strange boy who suffers from Tourette's syndrome and who can't
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stop touching, talking, tapping, dialing, or organizing, navigates the crazy language that dominates the inside of his head, and tries to understand the chain of events that led to the murder of his boss, an event that dominates everything else. In many ways Lionel is the most probable of the improbable characters who inhabit Lethem's dreamlike, bell-toned Brooklyn; certainly he is the most relatably human, compulsions notwithstanding. As he chases down the hidden details of the story he's unwittingly become a part of, he becomes a familiar, comforting presence, and an unlikely point of sanity and logic in an increasingly fake, incomprehensible world. The story is hilarious and compelling, and really fun to read. It was recommended to me by a writing teacher, and while it's not the kind of book I'd usually pick up without a recommendation, I really enjoyed it, and if you enjoy well-crafted mysteries and writers who like to play with language - and Lethem really does play, in every sense of the word, twisting and turning English into something unrecognizable and yet recognizable at the same time - I think you'll like it too. Show Less
LibraryThing member manque
A fine entertainment. Flirts with some deeper meanings, especially surrounding language and perception, the role of language in creating reality, identity, etc.--but ultimately decides to be a relatively straightforward detective story of a sort. Never annoying, occasionally brilliant, consistently
** Spoiler Alert **
In some ways, it's the oldest story in the book: Cain and Abel in 20th C. Brooklyn. But it doesn't play out that way; it's all about the bit-players, the side-kicks, Cain's and Abel's respective crews. Maybe for that reason it feels lacking in the end, like it's missing the central epiphany at its core that should be driving it, so that it's only a story well-told, but with nothing much of importance to say.
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and thoroughly entertaining, often gripping--a fine work of entertainment with a thin edge of serious meaning, of deeper themes. It's biggest drawback: it doesn't tell us anything new, about the world or ourselves. It doesn't surprise us, either about other people or ourselves.** Spoiler Alert **
In some ways, it's the oldest story in the book: Cain and Abel in 20th C. Brooklyn. But it doesn't play out that way; it's all about the bit-players, the side-kicks, Cain's and Abel's respective crews. Maybe for that reason it feels lacking in the end, like it's missing the central epiphany at its core that should be driving it, so that it's only a story well-told, but with nothing much of importance to say.
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LibraryThing member sturlington
What makes this novel so enjoyable is not the rather convoluted noir-style detective story forming the plot, but the uniqueness of its main character: a small-time criminal turned detective who has Tourette’s syndrome. Lionel Essrog doesn’t let loose with a stream of profanities every other
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sentence, though. His Tourette’s takes the form of nonsense words, tics and other compulsive gestures, and because he is telling the story, the narrative takes on the disjointedness and strange logic of Tourette’s. This unusual approach breathes life into a tired genre and gives the old private dick story a skewed, new aspect. Show Less
LibraryThing member laurenv
Bizarre and hilarious novel about a grown orphan with Tourrette’s Syndrome who fancies himself a private detective. An amazing depiction of what it’s like to live with the disease, the main character is tortured and at the mercy of his peculiar affliction.
Not to sound like a cheesy movie
Not to sound like a cheesy movie
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reviewer, but it is laugh-out-loud funny (it is also a “triumph” a “romp” and all the other canned, cliché words put to movies). Show Less
LibraryThing member lisapeet
According to an old book list, I read this in 2003. This would have been shortly after I first joined Readerville, my first (and always most beloved) foray into online book discussions—or really any kind of book discussion with a wider group of people than my own circle of friends. This was a
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much-loved book there, and I distinctly remember finding it on the table at Housing Works for $3 during a restless book-browsing lunch hour and being so happy to snap it up. The thrill of the hunt! Which has, in fact, never diminished no matter how many books and galleys I have piling up. Anyway, I remember liking the book but not much more than that, and am thinking that this is one I'll probably reread at some point. Show Less
LibraryThing member edgeworth
Motherless Brooklyn is the first of Lethem’s more well-known novels, and so I was expecting to really like it, particularly after Girl in Landscape left me cold. It follows native Brooklynite Lionel Essrog, who is recruited in childhood along with a few friends from an orphanage (hence the title)
Lionel also has Tourette’s syndrome (much less well-known when the novel was written), and his investigative interviews are hampered by his constant outbursts of verbal nonsense. There’s probably a postmodern reason for this, something to do with investigations, truth, the way our minds tick, etc. But I was never engaged with the novel enough to care. The plot itself is stock-standard crime novel stuff, complete with Japanese mobsters, Brooklyn thugs and an antagonistic homicide detective – although I did like the idea of telling a story from the point of view of one of a mobster’s anonymous thugs, the guys who always lurk menacingly in the background, whom we never think of having their own lives or stories.
Overall I didn’t particularly enjoy Motherless Brooklyn, and if I had to pick one I’d still say Lethem’s best book is As She Climbed Across The Table, although that wasn’t what I’d describe as a great novel. I’ve read Lethem’s first five novels now, and find him to be a frustrating writer – always on the verge of writing something really great, but never quite getting there. Hopefully his next book, Fortress of Solitude, will finally do it.
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by local small-time crook Frank Minna, to be groomed as what Minna styles “private detectives,” but who are actually just goons, thugs, or whatever you’d like to call them. In the novel’s opening scene, Frank is killed, and Motherless Brooklyn revolves around Lionel’s quest to solve the mystery of his father-figure’s murder.Lionel also has Tourette’s syndrome (much less well-known when the novel was written), and his investigative interviews are hampered by his constant outbursts of verbal nonsense. There’s probably a postmodern reason for this, something to do with investigations, truth, the way our minds tick, etc. But I was never engaged with the novel enough to care. The plot itself is stock-standard crime novel stuff, complete with Japanese mobsters, Brooklyn thugs and an antagonistic homicide detective – although I did like the idea of telling a story from the point of view of one of a mobster’s anonymous thugs, the guys who always lurk menacingly in the background, whom we never think of having their own lives or stories.
Overall I didn’t particularly enjoy Motherless Brooklyn, and if I had to pick one I’d still say Lethem’s best book is As She Climbed Across The Table, although that wasn’t what I’d describe as a great novel. I’ve read Lethem’s first five novels now, and find him to be a frustrating writer – always on the verge of writing something really great, but never quite getting there. Hopefully his next book, Fortress of Solitude, will finally do it.
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LibraryThing member belgrade18
I really loved this book. The narrator has Tourette's Syndrome, and a lot of the tale-telling involves how he over-processes every moment of his life, launching small but socially off-putting verbal and physical tics in every interaction he undertakes. I don't know enough about Tourette's to know
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just how accurate this depiction is, so I won't dive deeply there, but the writing is great, and this character is so well-developed it was easy to get into his head and view the world from his warped perspective. The other characters are not as well-developed or as interesting- they mostly serve to create the setting for this fascinating narrator, which is sometimes charming but mostly depressing. The mystery of the plot doesn't totally add up or make complete sense, but I thought it was only a vehicle for giving us a ride with this intriguing character. Okay, my review doesn't sound very convincing that this is a great book- just give it a try and you'll appreciate the writing and the character. Show Less
LibraryThing member grandpahobo
Amazing book. Frankly, there is nothing special about the plot. Its the main character and how the author puts you inside his head that makes this special.
LibraryThing member Boohradley
I really enjoyed this novel. This book would have received five stars from me, yet it dragged in the middle and I feel lost some of the energy that comes across so wonderfully in the beginning of the novel. I very much enjoyed experiencing the protagonist's inner experience of living with Tourette
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Syndrome. The mystery of what happened to Frank Minna moves the plot along well, but I feel the real value in this book is listening to how Leroy's experience of growing up as an orphan and how the development and progression of his Tourette's Syndrome informed who he was as an adult. Letham uses quite a bit of levity depicting Leroy's Tourettic responses and inner thoughts in such a way, I felt, that does not demean the experience of someone with this condition but shows how one can use humor to cope with what we cannot control. Show Less
LibraryThing member megcamp
A really enjoyable read, even for someone who doesn't usually love mysteries. The narrator's Tourette's syndrome lightens and simultaneously offers insight into an often scary-seeming disorder. The ending wraps up the wide array of details strewn throughout the book in an almost too neat little
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package, but somehow offers an acceptable resolution to the story woven before it. Lionel Essrog, the narrator who narrates without tics, but whose speech is full of some hilarious and some embarrassing tics, is a sympathetic character who wins the readers heart from the beginning. Show Less
LibraryThing member Fluffyblue
This is a really good use of language, with Lionel Essrog, the narrater of the story, having tourettes syndrome. Essrog is a detective and he works for a mobster, Frank Minna, who gets murdered. Lionel tries to find out who murders him.
The language is very much "Brooklyn" and you can picture the
From what I recall (it's some years since I read this book and it is due for a re-read!) the book slowed somewhat towards the end, but it is well worth reading.
Eatme.
The language is very much "Brooklyn" and you can picture the
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characters - always a sign of a good book in my opinion. Lionel is funny, sometimes unintentionally, with his outbursts and strange words.From what I recall (it's some years since I read this book and it is due for a re-read!) the book slowed somewhat towards the end, but it is well worth reading.
Eatme.
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LibraryThing member bookappeal
Four orphans in a school for boys are hired by Frank Minna, a small-time hood, to do odd (sometimes very odd) jobs. Frank becomes a father figure for them, imparting his Italian Brooklyn words of street-wise wisdom. But Frank never reveals the truth about his life and "The Minna Men" are left
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reeling when Frank is mortally wounded and won't divulge the name of his killer. Lionel Essrog tells the story, complete with the physical and verbal tics of Tourette Syndrome, as he tracks down Frank's killer. Lionel's condition is hilarious in its context (an amateur detective with no skills and fewer resources navigating the worlds of organized and corporate crime) but Lethem portrays Lionel with great sympathy and respect. The reader gets the rare opportunity to navigate a mind riddled by compulsions and obsessions, always threatening to explode in a flurry of words and gestures. Show Less
LibraryThing member Ibreak4books
I have a bias against books with a main character who is mentally impaired via alcohol, drugs or mental illness. It seems like a crutch to me, like the author doesn't have enough real stuff to deal with. But....with that in mind, we'll see how this goes.
LibraryThing member Cate88
Brilliant and funny take on the mystery genre.
LibraryThing member golfjr
A wonderful book. Insightful view of Tourette's syndrome.
LibraryThing member BillPilgrim
The main character and narrator has Tourette's Syndrome and that fact totally dominates this book. It is a tour de force on that issue. Although I have no idea if the presentation here is accurate for what it feels like inside to suffer from Tourette's, it is both heartbreaking and hilarious to
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read Lethem's portrait of the processing. The underlying plot is also quite engaging and well written. Show Less
LibraryThing member ZoharLaor
This book is about a bunch of low-life losers who follow another low-life loser and, by the way, solve a mystery. The main character is Lionel Essrog, an orphan who has never had a family (motherless) and never been out of his own little world (Brooklyn), yet is a likeable character who spits out
A delightful book with engaging characters. The mystery is more of a subplot to the character study of Essrog and his loser friends.
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profanities at inappropriate times due to his Tourette's Sydrome.A delightful book with engaging characters. The mystery is more of a subplot to the character study of Essrog and his loser friends.
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LibraryThing member kherrington
Lethem captures the essence of the classic hard-boiled detective story. The Tourette's suffering narrator is Lionel might be a gimmick, but it's a well-done gimmick. The mix of humor and pathos is just right. The story really has the feel of something written by Hammett or Chandler.
LibraryThing member etimme
While Lethem's prose is effective, his protagonist spent too much time in his own head for my tastes. The story was also light on answers and had a strange way of using people the audience never actually met (which Lionel specifically points out at the end of the story).
LibraryThing member SimoneA
I don't usually read mystery/detectives, but I guess the description of this book appealed to me because of the peculiar main character. Unfortunately, Lionel was not enough to save the book. For me, the Tourette's doesn't add enough to make it more than just a detective story.
LibraryThing member amelish
Viable guessfrog! Barnamum Pierogi! Garden State Bricco and Stuckface! Pianoctamus! Pianoctamum Bailey!
The plot's a little random, but the book is a joy to read.
The plot's a little random, but the book is a joy to read.
LibraryThing member nivramkoorb
This was my first Jonathan Lethem book and I thoroughly enjoyed. He uses language very well and he created a very unique story. I like to measure a story by whether or not I would like to follow the main character in another book and I definitely enjoyed Lionel and wouldn't mind seeing him in
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another story. I will read more by the author. Show Less
Language
Original language
English
ISBN
0571359310 / 9780571359318