Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
Blurb for the back cover:
"Part pulp fiction, part mystery"
Motherless Brooklyn is the heartwarming tale about a little orphan who is forced to come to terms with the sudden death of the only man he considered a father figure.
Sorta.
Lionel Essrog is in fact an orphan. His father figured has passed himself away in the form of being stabbed and left in a dumpster. And if by “come to terms” I meant “hunts down the men responsible”, then I wouldn’t have been far off in my description.
And so begins the tale of Motherless Brooklyn. Part pulp fiction, part mystery. This book was one of the books I was required to read this past school term (and that I finished). It was refreshing and interesting which was a pleasant surprise for school reading. While not quite as gritty and other pulp fiction books I have read, it does lend itself well to that genre. The story takes place in the 1950′s (if I recall correctly) and lends itself well to being timeless. Mystery books these days tend to clutter up the fun detective work with CSI like technology. This book takes place in a time before fingerprints were invented.
The characters in this book really stand out. Lionel, for example, has tourettes syndrome. The reader is often strung along with his thoughts, a series of nonsensical words or various tics, which make Lionel a really interesting protagonist because he stands out from everybody else. But all the other characters who share this novel are all distinct and are worth companions to Lionel.
Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by this book and I am interesting in checking out more of Jonathan Lethem ‘s books.