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Motherless Brooklyn
 
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Motherless Brooklyn [ABRIDGED] [AUDIOBOOK] (Audio Cassette)

by Jonathan Lethem (Author), Steve Buscemi (Reader)
4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (213 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

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 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
This entertaining play on the hard-boiled detective tale features an unlikely gumshoe with Tourette's syndrome, which compels him to count, tap and make strange vocalizations at inopportune moments. Such ticks could seem gimmicky, but Lethem writes it, and Buscemi performs it, with such style that the compulsions seem an endearing idiosyncrasy (though not to the Tourettic's cohorts, who call him "Freakshow"). Regretfully, it's hard to grasp Lethem's wordplay as it goes whizzing by--Buscemi enunciates at great speed to convey the frenetic activity inside the man's head. Lionel Essrog works with three other young men for Frank Minna's small-time detective agency ("Minna men," Lionel calls them) masquerading as a car service ("No cars!" the boys respond whenever the phone rings). Lionel was saved from an orphanage by Minna, so when his mentor is killed on a job, Lionel is devastated and determines to solve the crime. The chase takes him from a zendo on Manhattan's Upper East Side to a resort on the Maine coast as he follows a character he can identify only as "the giant." Buscemi convincingly conveys the accents of Japanese Zen masters and Brooklyn mobsters, along with Lionel's verbal acrobatics, all without losing the noirish ambience Lethem is gently riffing. Listeners may find themselves unable to turn off their Walkmen and put this one down. Based on the Doubleday hardcover (Forecasts, Aug. 16, 1999).

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.



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Product Details

  • Audio Cassette
  • Publisher: HarperAudio; Abridged edition (October 24, 2000)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 069452364X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0694523641
  • Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 4.1 x 1.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 5.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (213 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #548,405 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

213 Reviews
5 star:
 (118)
4 star:
 (52)
3 star:
 (24)
2 star:
 (18)
1 star:
 (1)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.3 out of 5 stars (213 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
45 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Wheels Within Wheels..., August 31, 2004
By B. Trainor (summerville, sc United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Motherless Brooklyn (Paperback)
There are many negative reviews focused on Motherless Brooklyn's weak plot. I can see how the murder-mystery of the novel may pale in comparison to a Hammett or Chandler design, but come on...??? Would it have been realistic to have a bunch of high school drop-out, low-level thugs who have never fired a gun or solved a previous case, effectively traverse their way through a complex, multi-faceted whodunit and come out on top? These are regular guys, maybe even less than regular. They are definitely not comic book or legendary sleuths; they are no Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe...they're not even an Inspector Clouseau.

Besides, the plot is merely a vehicle for a strangely compelling and brutally honest character study of Lionel Essrog, a 33 year old man who's never had a family, never been out of Brooklyn, but does have Tourette's syndrome. This could have been simply a gimmick, a device for fresh detective novel, but Lionel is self-effacing without becoming pitiable, awkward without becoming pathetic and brave without becoming heroic; he is truly original.

Also fascinating is Lethem's ability to take a walking cliché like Frank Minna and make him an interesting and unusually memorable character. He's a nobody...a hood, a prankster; there are millions of him out there, telling the same jokes, but he meant something to someone, to Lionel, and we see that sometimes that's all it takes.

Compared to other "private-dick" crime novels, I can see the enthusiasts not being completely sated, but for the rest of us...the story transcends the genre. It is a sincere, convincing slice-of-life. I enjoyed it and am eager to read more from Lethem.
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25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Authentically bizarre, March 14, 2000
By Bill Loehfelm (New Orleans, Louisiana USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Motherless Brooklyn (Hardcover)
Pleased to see Lethem's novel won the critic's circle award. Lethem's masterstroke is his narrator; Essrog is utterly believable. Often I wished hard he would just shut up and get on with solving the case, but there was no way I was going to stop reading. A very human reaction to a fictional character. Once you accept the Tourette's as part of the rhythm of the book it becomes a fascinating element of the character. As a former Brooklynite, I found Lethem's depiction of that area dead-on accurate (down to Rusty Staub and "half a fag") and beautifully realized without going over the top. Wonderful choice of words without overdoing it. Brooklyn becomes a main character with as valuable and intimate role in the story as any of the people. By the end I had a hard time believing Lethem was not a Brooklyn raised orphan with Tourette's. An entertaining, compelling and intelligent work. The defintion of excellent fiction.
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33 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Edward Norton Making a Movie of This?, March 31, 2000
By Justin Gardner (Kansas City) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Motherless Brooklyn (Hardcover)
I admit it. The only reason I picked up this book in the first place was because Edward Norton optioned it as a possible movie. But then something funny happened: I couldn't put it down.

I completely see why Norton likes this book. The main character, Lionel Essrog is the ultimate anti-hero: a man afflicted with Tourette's Sydrome who tries to solve a murder with no leads, and nobody to listen to him.

Sure, the detective story subplot isn't always edge-of-your-seat, but it's not boring either. Much of this is due to the charm that Lethem brings to his endearing, fractured protagonist, a loner who can't connect with anybody on a physical or emotional level.

I'm going to tell you all a secret now. Motherless Brooklyn isn't really a detective story about crimes and murders and what not. Sure, those elements are in there, but in actuality it's a meditation on a man seemingly too smart for his life, but too afflicted with Tourette's to change it.

I highly recommend this book. Although I didn't give it five stars, I still think it's memorable and charming enough to curl up with whenever you feel like getting lost in somebody else's world.

Cheers...

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book looking into an often misunderstood condition and it's role in everday life
Very enjoyable read, written vividly and in a manner which makes you not want to put it down
Published 24 days ago by Dzavid Pjetrovic

2.0 out of 5 stars Not What I Expected
Great concept but a bit too gritty/gangsta for me. I felt the interruption of the sentences with his tics and syndrome blurts were a bit much. Sorry to all the Lethem fans.
Published 1 month ago by Joan

4.0 out of 5 stars Clever enough detective story
Seems to suffer from one of the problems that plagues a lot of books the environment created is fantastic but the plot doesn't get going until about ½ way through the narrative if... Read more
Published 2 months ago by General Pete

4.0 out of 5 stars Fishnog!
Lionel Essrog is a character for all time. In a world where many would be disgusted or annoyed by his traits (a sufferer of tourette's syndrome) he is a man who is dog loyal, and... Read more
Published 3 months ago by B. Wilfong

4.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic Writing
Fantastic writing. I read this book on the recommendation of someone who read my novel, Aberrations. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Penelope Przekop

4.0 out of 5 stars Mostly Brilliant
Ostensibly this is a hard-boiled detective novel, but the detective story is just a framework for the real story, which is about Lionel Essrog's life with Tourette's syndrome and... Read more
Published 4 months ago by J. W. Kennedy

5.0 out of 5 stars Innovative Genre-Defying Novel - I LOVED IT!!!
I loved this innovative genre-defying novel. Ostensibly it is a murder mystery but it could be a novel about Tourette Syndrome or about adopted children or emotional fear and... Read more
Published 5 months ago by B. Brody

3.0 out of 5 stars Great Character- Weak Plot
By creating a narrator/ protagonist who suffers from Tourette's Lethem certainly took a bold and unique approach in this story of a group of Brooklyn orphans who are recruited by... Read more
Published 6 months ago by R. J. Marsella

5.0 out of 5 stars A page-turner by the master of Brooklyn.
You might think a writer could not construct a brilliantly-worded, completely engaging detective story centering around a protagonist with Tourette syndrome. Read more
Published 7 months ago by R. S. Guthrie

4.0 out of 5 stars I love it!
this book is so fresh and hectic,i enjoy reading it immensely.
a unique detective book.
Published 7 months ago by Belgazal Shirly

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