Author: Jonathan Lethem

 

Jonathan Allen Lethem is an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. His first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music, a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was published in 1994

Bio:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Lethem

Motherless Brooklyn (2019)

 

In 1950s New York, a lonely private detective afflicted with Tourette's Syndrome ventures to solve the murder of his mentor and only friend.

Idiosyncratic adaptation of a Jonathan Lethem novel reduces the original's narrative into a superbly acted and cast and complex neo noir crime drama; the 1950s period settings are excellent.

 

First Lines: Jonathan Lethem - Motherless Brooklyn

Context is everything.

First Lines: Jonathan Lethem - Girl in Landscape

Mother and daughter worked together, dressing the two young boys, tucking them into their outfits.

New Stuff: Jonathan Lethem

New Stuff: Jonathan Lethem

First Lines: Jonathan Lethem - Gun, with Occasional Music

It was there when I woke up, I swear.

New Stuff: Jonathan Lethem

New Stuff: Jonathan Lethem

New Stuff: Fear of Music

Jonathan Lethem contributed to the series, had to get it; of course, I have the Talking Heads album, too.

New Stuff: Jonathan Lethem

Very much looking forward to reading Lethem's new novel.

First Lines: Jonathan Lethem - The Fortress of Solitude

Like a match struck in a darkened room:
Two white girls in flannel nightgowns and red vinyl roller skates with white laces, tracing tentative circles on a cracked blue slate sidewalk at seven o'clock on an evening in July.

New Stuff: Jonathan Lethem

Jonathan Lethem's newest book is an extensive collection of his nonfictional work.

New stuff

Jonathan Lethem: The Fortress of Solitude

Dylan Ebdus is a white kid on a black-and-brown street. As he struggles through public school in 1970s Brooklyn, he is "yoked"--put in a headlock--and frisked for change on a daily basis. Testing into a good Manhattan school, he steps into a long-lasting role: vulnerable among street kids, he's street-smart compared to his new, privileged pals, and loathes himself as a poseur with both crowds. When he finds a ring that grants the power of flight, he's afraid to use it, but his black friend, Mingus, is not. They try their hand at crime fighting, but like many teenage endeavors, the project fizzles out. Lethem is a tremendous writer, and in the first half he uses magnificent language to capture the complexity of a child's worldview. When he jump-cuts to Dylan's adulthood, however, his switch to a more conventional narrative style is disappointing. The story regains momentum when Dylan rediscovers the ring and a new power it offers, then returns to his old street and ponders a sacrifice: whether to give the ring to the boy who yoked him the most. Lethem explores many avenues: the origins of gentrification, the development of soul music, the genealogy of graffiti, the seeds of the crack epidemic. The different concepts converge in the closing pages, but this often-excellent novel labors under the weight of its ambition. Keir Graff
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There are certain authors I enjoy reading and try to read every book they have published, Jonathan Lethem is one of them. In this case I must agree that while I enjoyed the book very much, the author did have a few ambitions too many.