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Gun, With Occasional Music

3.77 of 5 stars 3.77 · rating details · 4,900 ratings · 509 reviews

Gumshoe Conrad Metcalf has problems-there's a rabbit in his waiting room and a trigger-happy kangaroo on his tail. Near-future Oakland is a brave new world where evolved animals are members of society, the police monitor citizens by their karma levels, and mind-numbing drugs such as Forgettol and Acceptol are all the rage.
Metcalf has been shadowing Celeste, the wife of an...more

Paperback, 271 pages

Published September 1st 2003 by Mariner Books (first published 1994)

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Community Reviews

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Dec 21, 2012 Dan Schwent rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: the-survey-monkey-haul, sf, 2011, crime-and-mystery

When down and out private inquisitor Conrad Metcalf's last client turns up dead, Metcalf takes up the case to find out who killed him. Can he find the killer before he runs out of karma and winds up in the deep freeze?

If Raymond Chandler and Philip K. Dick spent an evening together doing hard drugs, this would be the book that would result. Lethem weaves together the sci-fi and noir elements together so tightly that an evolved kangaroo doesn't seem out of place after his first appearance.

The wor...more

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Sep 10, 2011 Mariel rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: there were only a few flipper babies!

Recommended to Mariel by: I don't acceptol this book please give me some forgettol

Book, with constant boredom. Answers, with no questions. Questions, with no answers on the tips of tongues or inside cheeks (maybe ass cheeks). Music, with no tone. Gun, with no bullets. Who signed off on the license? Déjà vu that reminds of nothing. Is that the appeal of genres to remind of nothing and feel the welcoming coma with dreams that someone else plants there and you wake up before you can see anyone's faces? The eye from that book, the nose from this... "Make me look beautiful!" "But...more

24 likes · like · see review

Nov 03, 2012 Rob rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: curious what Neal Stephenson sounds like covering Raymond Chandler?

Shelves: own, science-fiction, 2008, 2012

In Gun, With Occasional Music, Jonathan Lethem gives us science fiction's worthy successor to Raymond Chandler. Though this is the easy take-home message from nearly every quoted newspaper columnist, book jacket blurb, and miscellaneous reviewer -- they also all happen to be right. Even a cursory familiarity with Chandler's pulp noir will ring through with startling clarity to readers of this novel. The cadence of the narrative, the hard-boiled dialogue, the archetypal characters... Lethem's Con...more

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Dec 27, 2008 Maureen rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people who like Raymond Chandler

Shelves: novels

somebody lent me this book because they know i love my noir, and the book pays off in that regard but the notion that this is science fiction or a successor to pkd is confusing to me -- the world lethem introduces us to has drugs coming out the wazoo, and there are evolved animals yes, but really? that all seems window dressing, a spin on what is primarily a detective story. lots of what i would consider the speculative elements don't actually seem to go anywhere -- why is text outlawed? what's...more

5 likes · like · see review

Dec 17, 2012 Jason added it

Shelves: read-2010

Yes, there is a quote that starts this book off by Raymond Chandler, and yes, it is written in that hard-boiled detective style, and yes it is set in the future and deals with individuality and choice, which brings up all of the Dick references, but this is a book that more than anything is channeling the lovechild of Huxley and Orwell.

Set in a future that is not entirely dissimilar to the fifties, it is populated with evolved animals and sarcastic, whiskey drinking babies and everyone does sta...more

3 likes · like · see review

Oct 22, 2007 Andrew rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Excellent. His style is as cold as Hammett's, and the moral core as strong as Chandler's. And any book that says both "In Los Angeles it's illegal to know what you do for a living" and "Tell him next time he wants to talk to me, don't send a marsupial" should be in everyone's library.

This character develops, is one thing somewhat new: he loses his early self-consciousness about his metaphors, and eventually solidifies enough to end a chapter with the brilliant line: "It was time to stop fucking...more

10 likes · like · see review

Sep 01, 2007 Punk rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction

Sci-fi noir detective story. It's Blade Runner meets Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and exactly as goofy and dark as that sounds.

Conrad Metcalf is our narrator, a Private Inquisitor in a world where direct questions are considered rude and question marks are flashy punctuation. The story's filled with products of evolution therapy: talking kittens and mobster kangaroos, plus the mysterious babyheads -- toddlers with advanced intelligence that hang out in babyhead bars and babble their babyhead talk. I...more

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Oct 27, 2008 Mandapants rated it 4 of 5 stars

"Gun, with Occasional Music" is the best kind of science fiction- you barely know it's science fiction at all. Every aspect of the world Lethem has created is in service of the plot, even the bits that seem overly goofy or derivative at first, not the other way around.

The story is a slab of thick noir starring the every-P.I. Metcaff. Letham casts the heavy as an evolved kangaroo, and his world also features 3-foot tall evolved babies. While this could come off as "Disney Does Noir", there's ver...more

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Jul 30, 2011 Jason rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-2011

5 stars for me

I sat down with my old trustee Sony reader, ready to break dawn with the start of a new book. A new weird detective noir novel, think Dick Tracy set in an alt future. You have guns and bad guys, some music too, but you also have drugs galore and a cast that consists of a talking sheep, a crotchedy old detective ape, some evolved kitties and babies and a strong armed, short tempered kangaroo named Joey Castle. It is a murder mystery that is told in the first person by our protagonis...more 5 stars for me

I sat down with my old trustee Sony reader, ready to break dawn with the start of a new book. A new weird detective noir novel, think Dick Tracy set in an alt future. You have guns and bad guys, some music too, but you also have drugs galore and a cast that consists of a talking sheep, a crotchedy old detective ape, some evolved kitties and babies and a strong armed, short tempered kangaroo named Joey Castle. It is a murder mystery that is told in the first person by our protagonist Conrad Metcalf.

I queued the music, an old Aphex Twin album to set the mood, piped straight through to my cerebral cortex via my buds. With the snares a blazing I grabbed my newest drug of choice, a new type of a bold and dark K-cup, guaranteed to get your senses tingling.

I had that feeling again, one which has seemed to come on more and more as I tip over the top of the 40 year old hill that is my life. I let myself fall into rhythm with the music. The notes permeate my nerve endings and set them a tingling, and the aroma of my Joe fills my head as the words of this thriller assail my conscience. I lose all sense of time. Wow, I realize what a slave to my eReader I have become while reading wonderful dark noir type thrillers that are mashed up with my love of science fiction and the new weird.

"So I showered and shaved and got my gums bleeding with a toothbrush, then stumbled into the kitchen to cauterize the wounds with some scalding coffee. The mirror was still out, with fat, half-snorted lines of my blend stretching across it like double-jointed white fingers."

"Standing in the doorway was the evolved kangaroo I'd seen in the bar of the Vistamount. He was wearing a canvas jacket with a tight elastic waistband, and his paws were tucked into his pockets."

This detective noir novel that Jonathan Lethem has created is my favorite cup of tea(yes I do drink tea too!). He has spun a gumshoe character in Metcalf that comes across as being smart and in control while at the same time he shows his flaws, to which some might find him to be pathetic and a loser. The side cast is a fun bunch of unusual characters that fit right in with any new weird novel out today.

This book does have a few problems. The pacing is uneven, our hero is too unreliable a narrator to get all the real answers, and the book is simply too short. I really would have liked an additional 100 pages.

If you are a detective noir fan that does not mind a crazy science fiction inspired world, this one is for you. I have finally found a friend for John Finch (from Finch by Jeff Vandermeer) in Conrad Metcalf. I love the genre and I loved this book!!!!!!(less)

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Oct 27, 2009 Richard rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to Richard by: Borderlands-Books.com

Shelves: bookclub, bizarre, scifi-fantasy, san-francisco

This is a fun and quick read. But in the days after I finished it, I found that my impression took a bit of a dip as I pondered it, and it lost its four-star rating in the process.

But first, a curiosity: this is the second off-beat mystery novel set in Oakland that I've read recently. The other one, Swing: A Mystery by Rupert Holmes, isn't SciFi at all, but also involves a musical theme which is even more central to the plot.

As the blurb and other reviews have remarked, Gun, with Occasional Mus...more

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Jan 11, 2008 Osho rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2007

It has a kangaroo walking into a bar, see? What's not to like? This was Lethem's first novel and it's just as confident and sharp as the rest. A dystopian noir detective novel of the future, Gun, with Occasional Music hits its tone well and sustains it evenly throughout. Some detail (including the occasional music of the title) is not as well-developed as I'd have liked. The plot develops in the Fahrenheit 451-A Scanner Darkly range, plus the expected Chandler-Hammett twists and complications. T...more

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Aug 01, 2007 Mona Young rated it 4 of 5 stars

Okay... so it's science fiction mystery detective noir. Not much competition in that genre. But it manages to be good on all levels, as well as thrilling, funny, gripping, sad, thought-provoking, bittersweet and insane.

I admit I love Lethem's use of the language to invent a near future that is, weird as it is, not unimaginable. The novel's ambience is perfect and the characters are sympathetic and real (even the evolutionarily-accelerated talking animals) and the plot compelling. The only thing...more

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Aug 23, 2012 Jill rated it 3 of 5 stars

GWOM is wildly different and creative. This is a scifi/noir/detective story, but those categorizations only begin to describe this book that, as a Newsweek critic wrote, “marries Chandler’s style and Philip K. Dick’s vision.” And indeed, the opening lines of the second chapter of Raymond Chandler’s final book, Playback, served as the inspiration for this one, as elucidated by the epigraph: "There was nothing to it. The Super Chief was on time, as it almost always is, and the subject was as easy...more GWOM is wildly different and creative. This is a scifi/noir/detective story, but those categorizations only begin to describe this book that, as a Newsweek critic wrote, “marries Chandler’s style and Philip K. Dick’s vision.” And indeed, the opening lines of the second chapter of Raymond Chandler’s final book, Playback, served as the inspiration for this one, as elucidated by the epigraph: "There was nothing to it. The Super Chief was on time, as it almost always is, and the subject was as easy to spot as a kangaroo in a dinner jacket."

GWOM is set in a futuristic California in which evolved animals perform the menial tasks; where the population is kept subdued by legalized addiction to “make” (drugs like “Forgettol” and “Acceptol”); and where words in newspapers have been outlawed and replaced by only pictures. (Music is also acceptable for the expression of ideas. For example, when an evolved baby (called a “babyhead”) or perhaps a kangaroo pulls out a gun and points it at you, the gun might play a few bars of “ominous, pulsing violin.”) In this new world, criminals are frozen for the length of their term, citizens have to accrue karma points to stay out of trouble with the Inquisitor’s Office, and personal formulae for addictive drugs are kept on a computer at a “makery” where you pick up your supply of “make.”

Conrad Metcalf is a P.I. (here meaning, Private Inquisitor) who is, like most other citizens, addicted to "make" (but because of his job requirements, lays off the Forgettol, opting instead for Regrettol). He is looking into the murder of Maynard Stanhunt, who had hired Metcalf just a week earlier to investigate his wife, Celeste, a typical noir mystery “dame”:

"Celeste Stanhunt was a nice-looking woman who became something more when you were being paid to peek through her windows. To put it simply, there hadn’t been any need to undress her in my mind.”

Indeed, at one point, Celeste, in an attempt to manipulate Metcalf, “applied herself to the front of my body like a full-length decal…”

But like all noir, there is darkness, as with this scene reminiscent of the movie “Blue Velvet”: "For Celeste, I knew as surely as our hips had ground together, danger was the intoxicant, and if there wasn’t danger there would have to be something else, some other malign aphrodisiac. I wanted to hit her as much as I wanted to fuck her, and she probably wanted to be hit as much as she wanted anything.”

Metcalf quit the Inquisitor’s Office to go private because, besides the usual noir mystery reasons of the protagonist being a loner and having an adverse reaction to authority, Metcalf maintained that “the inquisitors specialize in nifty solutions at the expense of truth.…” But one of Metcalf’s enemies points out Metcalf is no different: "’The Office and the makery – they’re one and the same to me,’ he said. ‘Make is a tool for controlling great masses of people. It homogenizes their response to repression, don’t you think? You consider yourself an outsider, a seeker of truth amidst lies, yet you’ve bought into the biggest lie that can be told. You snort that lie through your nose and let it run in your bloodstream.”

Metcalf prefers to say that he is “looking at the world through a rose-colored bloodstream…”

As Metcalf closes in on the truth of what happened to Stanhunt, there are a lot more deaths, as well as informative encounters with ewes, apes, and the kangaroo named Joey. Metcalf keeps losing his karma, and the only question is, will he also lose his life? Or has he already lost it?

Evaluation: This was fun, but a little too deliberately constructed for me to lose myself in the story. Nevertheless, I was starting to get invested in the main character by the end, and thus was disappointed when the author dropped the inchoate emo angle and went back to cold cynicism. And yet, it is cold cynicism that characterizes the genre, and as such, was entirely appropriate.
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May 13, 2012 Κατερίνα Μαλακατέ rated it 4 of 5 stars

http://www.diavazontas.blogspot.com/2...

Στο μυθιστόρημα με τον μάλλον άτονο ελληνικό τίτλο «Όπλο μετά μουσικής» (το αγγλικό «Gun, with occasional music» είναι σαφώς σαρκαστικότερο…)ο Τζόναθαν Λέθεμ αποδεικνύει πως η αστυνομική λογοτεχνία και ταυτόχρονα η επιστημονική φαντασία μπορεί να αποτελέσουν βάση για εξαιρετικά βιβλία.

Ήρωας του βιβλίου ο ιδιωτικός εξεταστής Μέτκαλφ που αναλαμβάνει μια υπόθεση φόνου. Το σκηνικό έρχεται από το μέλλον, όπου «εξελιγμένα» ζώα κάνουν ανθρώπινες δουλειές, δεν υπά...more http://www.diavazontas.blogspot.com/2...

Στο μυθιστόρημα με τον μάλλον άτονο ελληνικό τίτλο «Όπλο μετά μουσικής» (το αγγλικό «Gun, with occasional music» είναι σαφώς σαρκαστικότερο…)ο Τζόναθαν Λέθεμ αποδεικνύει πως η αστυνομική λογοτεχνία και ταυτόχρονα η επιστημονική φαντασία μπορεί να αποτελέσουν βάση για εξαιρετικά βιβλία.

Ήρωας του βιβλίου ο ιδιωτικός εξεταστής Μέτκαλφ που αναλαμβάνει μια υπόθεση φόνου. Το σκηνικό έρχεται από το μέλλον, όπου «εξελιγμένα» ζώα κάνουν ανθρώπινες δουλειές, δεν υπάρχουν πια παιδιά, αλλά εξελιγμένοι μωροκέφαλοι, και τα ναρκωτικά είναι νόμιμα με τον καθένα να φτιάχνει το χαρμάνι του. Σε αυτόν τον κόσμο, κουμάντο κάνει το Γραφείο, που ελέγχει τους πόντους στο κάρμα σου, κανονίζει αν υπάρχεις ή δεν υπάρχεις, φροντίζει να αποβλακώνει με ντραγκς τον πληθυσμό. Ο ήρωας, κυνικός, εθισμένος, ρεαλιστής και μια ιδέα ιδεαλιστής, παλεύει μια τελικά προσωπική μάχη, στην αρχή για να γλιτώσει έναν νεαρό που φαίνεται αθώος από τον «πάγο» και μετά για να βρει την αλήθεια. Το τέλος του βιβλίου μας αποδεικνύει πως η αλήθεια δεν φέρνει πάντα την ευτυχία, πως υπάρχουν αστυνομικά όπου η δικαιοσύνη είναι σχετική και πως το χάπι έντ δεν είναι απαραίτητο.

Πρόκειται για ένα ευκολοδιάβαστο βιβλίο, με σαφείς κοινωνικές αναφορές, όπως όλες οι δυστοπίες, έξυπνη ψυχογράφηση των ηρώων και μοντέρνα γραφή. Κι αν σκεφτείς πως αποτελεί το πρωτόλειο του συγγραφέα (στα Αγγλικά εκδόθηκε το 1994) ε, τότε μπορεί και να ζηλέψεις.(less)

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Feb 17, 2012 Christopher rated it 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed how well this book kind of filtered its reality for the reader and was able to appear to be one thing while simultaneously being another. It's as classic a hard-boiled detective story as there's ever been, so it feels comfortable and familiar, but it's set in a sci-fi world that makes the progression of the plot extra interesting as you're exposed to new aspects of this strange world/society. It also--despite being about murder, corruption, and other awful things--often is quite funny...more

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Feb 14, 2012 Rebecca Martin rated it 4 of 5 stars

And again I say, "Where the heck was I in all the years this book has been around?" I loved Motherless Brooklyn, and I have Fortress of Solitude though I have not read it yet, so how did I fail to discover this book? This is Lethem's first, published in 1994. It's a hard-boiled detective novel with a twist, well, lots of twists. It's set in the not-too-distant future and while Conrad Metcalf is a private gumshoe straight out of the pages of Chandler, he's also addicted to drugs (referred to as "...more

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Nov 11, 2011 Tony Gleeson rated it 3 of 5 stars

Lethem's "Motherless Brooklyn" is a marvelous book so I approached this, his first novel, with some enthusiasm, which is perhaps why I finished with some sense of disappointment. Okay, it was his first book. His quirky sensibility is abundant here, but he apparently needed to learn when to rein that in. This is basically a private-detective novel, set in Oakland, California, written with an obvious tip of the hat to Chandler and Hammett et al-- but the twist is that it takes place in a dystopian...more Lethem's "Motherless Brooklyn" is a marvelous book so I approached this, his first novel, with some enthusiasm, which is perhaps why I finished with some sense of disappointment. Okay, it was his first book. His quirky sensibility is abundant here, but he apparently needed to learn when to rein that in. This is basically a private-detective novel, set in Oakland, California, written with an obvious tip of the hat to Chandler and Hammett et al-- but the twist is that it takes place in a dystopian future in which a shadowy oppressive Inquisition has taken control of the social order and genetics have run amok. "Evolved" animals, pseudo-humans that make up an underclass, are everywhere-- shades of H. G. Wells's island of Dr. Moreau or Cordwainer Smith. Newborns are subject to similar sped-up "evolution" to become monstrous "babyheads," that look like infants but try to act like adults. Drugs like "Acceptol" and "Forgettol" are legal and freely dispersed by the government, keeping the populace in check. Citizens carry "karma," regulated by the Inquisition, and if they dip too low, they're frozen as a prison sentence. Asking questions is not only considered rude but is illegal, except by government inquisitors or "private inquisitors," this tale's equivalent of the private eye. All of this could be fascinating except that it comes off as way too much-- heavy handedly slathered over a bare-bones murder mystery that in itself isn't all that interesting. My impression was that Lethem was too infatuated with his science-fiction concepts and not sufficiently interested in the actual story.

This is certainly not the only attempt to date to meld the classic noir mystery with science fiction elements-- John Zakour and Lawrence Ganem's wacky "Plutonium Blonde" series comes to mind-- but in general it seems a hard blend to craft effectively. Most of the attempts seem to concentrate on parodying the Chandlerian tough-guy style and introducing the wildest cast of s-f characters possible. I give Lethem points for his wild imagination and his guts in putting this story together, but in the end he seems to have lost control of his elements. The future setting is downright oppressively depressing-- though I love his inserting places from the East Bay area that are familiar from the here-and-now. Possibly his intention was to make the future SO oppressive that it would be another parodic element, but it doesn't come off that way-- the setting and the story are downright leaden and actually fight against the sense of comedy that he's also trying to create here.

First book, I give Lethem a break. There's imagination a-plenty bristling here, and you see his promise. And after all: his later efforts bought him plenty of karma.

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Aug 15, 2011 Craig rated it 2 of 5 stars

I wanted to like this book, I really did. A nice little mixture of the standard down-on-his-luck detective story and the dystopian science fiction future setting, with some humor mixed in - what's not to like, right? Sadly, it turns out there isn't much I can say for it. Lethem gives us this cobbled-together society with evolved animals, "evolved" babies, this wonderful mixture of government-issue chemicals that pretty much everyone imbibes with regularity, and a karma-tracking system - but why?...more

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Mar 28, 2011 Kristina rated it 3 of 5 stars

I honestly can't figure out how I feel about this, or how to discuss it intelligently. I feel like there is a ton of stuff to analyze and break down here, but I'm not writing a book report so I won't. In terms of entertainment value, I guess there were some aspects I really liked and found very clever, and some things that impressed me less. I know for sure that I would have liked to learn more about the babyheads, and what the hell was the deal with them, and a little less about the "make," dis...more

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Jul 22, 2010 Abby rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime, sf

It's hard to believe that this was Lethem's first novel -- his voice is already so assured, yet entirely different than his more recent, less fantastic works. It's also clear that he had a knack for naming characters from day one -- my favorite is Walter Surface, an old-school private eye of the most untraditional kind.

Everyone describes this book as Raymond Chandler meets Phillip K. Dick and that's absolutely true -- except the future is even bleaker in Lethem's vision than Dick's. You don't n...more

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May 03, 2010 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars

Having greatly enjoyed Motherless Brooklyn I read this Lethem book, his first, with a little concern. Usually first books by authors are not their best, especially when they are only dug up later after the author has been noticed for another work. However I can happily say that Gun with Occasional Music is well worth the time of anyone who loves Noir fiction.

In short, the book is a mash up of dystopian and crime fiction. It follows a classic Raymond Chandler type detective character as he makes...more

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Jul 13, 2009 Patrick rated it 3 of 5 stars

I like Lethem---He is a friend of the science fiction genre, despite writing mostly about other subjects. This particular work is a detective story set in a dystopian future, which, the details for me were more interesting than the plot. Without giving too much away, in the future, you have to have a license (unless you are state employed) in order to ask people questions, and everyone is hooked on drugs, which is completely legal, and in fact encouraged by the state. Animals have also been "upl...more

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Apr 19, 2009 Brendan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009, book-club, fiction, scifi, mystery, 1996-2007

I reread Lethem’s dark tech-noir mystery novel in preparation for my mystery reading group’s discussion of it. I was a bit worried because it wasn’t the usual fare we read for that group, but I feel like that’s my role: to recommend stuff we wouldn’t usually read (I’ve also had us read City of Glass and The Big Over Easy). The discussion went pretty well, though several of the regulars either missed the meeting or hadn’t finished the book. Those who had finished seemed to like it pretty well, an...more

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Jan 11, 2012 zxvasdf rated it 5 of 5 stars

I'm not really into hardboiled reads, but I love love the imagery within of some harsh dude, probably holding a cigarette and contemplating a bottle of scotch stashed in a drawer, feet laid up on a desk next to a phone that has known almost no use.

Lethem, artist of genrebending, delivers a funny read that is also smooth down the cranial gullet. Like that good scotch stashed in the drawer. What little noir I've read harks from Ross H. Spencer whom I believe to be the funniest noir detective writ...more

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Nov 30, 2011 Ben rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: i-own, sci-fi-and-fantasy, dystopian, noir

Dystopian noir science fiction. Need I say more?

Probably not, but I will, because that's just who I am. While the concept of this book is incredible (as are the characters, the plot generally, the world he creates, and the writing itself), I found myself slightly disappointed with the end. It's pretty quick, and feels a bit rushed--or, at the same time, it feels like he tried to stretch it out too far, which only makes sense once you've read the book. Otherwise, though, this is an incredible bo...more

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Jun 09, 2013 Justin rated it 5 of 5 stars

A pacey dark detective noir set in an future dystopian "Orwellian-y" world with evolved animals (read talking animals) and lots of state-controlled blow! If you like the hard boiled detective style and gritty characters then this is for you. The book is written in the first person voice so you tend to quickly form your own internal dialogue of that classic detective voiceover narrating in your head, which is kinda cool. The plot is sharp and has you guessing at the clues and trying to piece toge...more

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Nov 05, 2011 Rita rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: genre-mystery, genre-slipstream

One-third Raymond Chandler, one-third biopunk, one third Disney on crack. I don't really know how else to explain it.

There's a Marlowe-esque protagonist and enough weird incidental shit like kangaroos with guns that you never get bored. The worldbuilding is a bit shallow, though. There's stuff like widespread, government-approved drug use and an underclass of talking "evolved" animals, all of which is meant to make a statement about corruption, social control, and personal agency, but because Le...more

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Apr 24, 2011 Lea rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: acquired-2011, read-2011, favorites, love-the-cover, reviews

Sci fi, maybe? Definitely noir. This is one of the most unusual and interesting books I've read . . . maybe ever. The only thing that comes close are the bizarro titles I've read this year, but this has the extra bonus of being three times the length of most of those books.

Conrad Metcalf, PI (Private Inquisitor), lives in a world where conversation is frowned upon, and asking questions is permitted only by professional Inquisitors. Everyone functions by using drugs (Forgettol, Acceptol, etc), an...more

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Nov 30, 2008 Meika rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to Meika by: Alice

This was a quick and intriguing read, though I can't say if I would've finished it if there hadn't been someone waiting for my copy.
The Noir plot was pretty straightforward, with a nice twist of irony waiting at the end, and Lethem makes good use of a time-warp to solve a number of the usual, sticky plot snags. I also thought the better-living-through-chemistry commentary was well done. It didn't have the stink of public service announcements... and what would a Noir detective protagonist be wi...more

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Jun 05, 2013 Rucker Manley rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: owned, 2013

A valiant first effort that ultimately falls short. In fact, when I found this book in the Used Book Cellar of Harvard Bookstore, I was excited to start it. Herein lie several things that excite me: anthropomorphic animals, private eyes (sorry, Private Inquisitors), flawed main characters, and most of all, a dystopian near-futures.

But that's the problem, see. Lethem has tried to inject too much into this book. As a result of the multitude of science fiction elements, the writer meets the first o...more

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About Jonathan Lethem

JONATHAN LETHEM is the author of seven novels. A recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship, Lethem has published his stories and essays in The New Yorker, Harpers, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and the New York Times, among others.

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“Some people have things written all over their faces; the big guy had a couple of words misspelled in crayon on his.” — 6 people liked it

“I'd underestimated him. I assumed anyone who started out gut-punching you in an elevator couldn't have all that much else in his arsenal. For instance, I had no idea he could smile, let alone at such an inappropriate time.” — 5 people liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16718.Gun_With_Occasional_Music?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328874787l/16718.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16718.Gun_With_Occasional_Music?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Gun, With Occasional Music by Jonathan Lethem[/url]

Gun, With Occasional Music

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