Customer Reviews

Motherless Brooklyn

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Lionel is one of four boys from a Brooklyn orphanage enlisted to help the young Frank Minna, Lionel is then thirteen years old. When the boys eventually leave school Franks takes the boys on full time as he establishes is rather shady detective agency which operates under the cover of a limo service. It is some fifteen years after Lionel first encountered Frank that they are on a surveillance which leads to Frank being murdered. Lionel takes on the task of seeking vengeance for the death of the nearest thing he has had to a father.

The story covers the early period of the boys employment and then picks up at the time of the ill fated surveillance, and Lionel's subsequent hunt for the murderer. Not sure who to trust, even amongst his three fellow orphans or anywhere else, Lionel works more or less alone, on more than one occasion putting himself in serious danger. Lionel narrates the account in the first person.

The plot alone would make an interesting novel, but what makes this story special is that Lionel is no ordinary boy, he suffers from Tourett'es syndrome, and is prone to tics, frequent verbal outbusts often of made up words, counting and obsessions with numbers, and touching people. A condition which confuses most people he meets as most are not familiar with the condition. In Lionel Jonathan Lethem has created a remarkable character, one who is appealing and who immediately engenders our sympathy. This is done entirely through the inner person that is Lionel; it would have been easy to make Lionel physically endearing, but rather Letham chooses to make him a large and rather ordinary looking person. The result is that his affliction becomes the source of his appeal.

Motherless Brooklyn is a well written and captivating and moving story, but more than that it is a story about a remarkable character. It also provides a vivid insight into the condition known as Tourette's syndrome.

the place, the characters are all clear. You feel like you are there.
Lionel is a guy you know- a little different but you hope he and the other orphans come out of this o.k. Easy to read from page 1.

Seller said it was like new and it was! He had a protective book cover as well as wrapped in plastic. The person who I gave it to for Christmas loved it! thanks!