false 328854 22 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 <I>face</I>, 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 <I>toothbrush in the mirror</I>.<p> This brilliant sentence and a lot of other really excellent ones compose Lethem's engaging fifth novel, <I>Motherless Brooklyn</I>. 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 <I>very</I> 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.<p> Detectives? Brooklyn? Is this the same Lethem who danced the postapocalypso in <I>Amnesia Moon</I>? 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? <I>Fuggetaboutit</I>. 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 <I>Motherless Brooklyn</I> 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. <I>--Ryan Boudinot</I> 1971553 1999 Motherless Brooklyn total:7306|5:1967|4:3334|3:1635|2:310|1:60| 7306 28756 9715 834 5 7 false false Wed Dec 31 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Jun 22 11:36:59 -0700 2008 Wed Dec 31 18:21:04 -0800 2008

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Word I learned in this book...more...]]> 4 5 true false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Aug 18 19:25:26 -0700 2007 Sun Jul 06 01:03:30 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 2 false false Tue Feb 19 07:26:51 -0800 2008 Tue Feb 19 11:20:56 -0800 2008 ...more...]]> 5 2 false false Tue May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon May 21 21:12:44 -0700 2007 Mon May 21 21:45:59 -0700 2007 Motherless Brooklyn entails the little imagined world of Lionel Essrog, a tourettic orphan become tourettic detective. Essrog isn't your classic hero, nor is he...more...]]> 5 2 false false Fri Feb 13 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Feb 02 09:55:33 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 13 15:03:07 -0800 2009 2 more...]]> 5 3 false false Thu Sep 13 09:20:17 -0700 2007 Thu Sep 13 09:20:17 -0700 2007 4 14 false false Mon Aug 03 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Jun 12 07:19:58 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 06 11:08:33 -0700 2009 Tell me to do it muffin ass …. to rest the lust of a loaftomb! …. Barnamum Pierogi lug!

Meet Lionel Essrog. Viable Guessfrog, Lionel Deathclam, Liable Guesscog, Ironic Pissclam. Lionel is a Minna Man. A full fledged Hardly Boy… A freakshow… A member of Motherless Brookl...more...]]> 1 1 false false Sat Dec 13 14:04:55 -0800 2008 Sat Dec 13 14:44:05 -0800 2008
I can't stomach the current-trend of neo-sentence structure that this novel is saturated with. My head explodes when I read literature that falls into th...more...]]> 3 1 false false Fri Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Aug 07 06:44:41 -0700 2008 Thu Aug 07 06:45:04 -0700 2008 The premise is awesome, but Lethem doesn't follow it through to it...more...]]> 4 1 false false Sat Jun 28 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 23 23:37:59 -0700 2008 Tue Dec 09 16:18:32 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Jan 01 20:39:10 -0800 2008 Wed Jan 30 21:21:46 -0800 2008 more...]]> 2 1 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Thu Dec 13 04:13:36 -0800 2007 Sat Dec 15 15:02:52 -0800 2007 more...]]> 4 1 false false Sat Jan 31 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 24 13:19:34 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 31 12:27:12 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Sun Dec 28 10:08:27 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 28 10:09:34 -0800 2008 3 1 false false Mon May 28 20:39:50 -0700 2007 Sat Jun 16 06:52:04 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 1 false false Thu Aug 16 09:19:16 -0700 2007 Thu Aug 16 09:23:11 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Aug 20 06:43:18 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 20 07:15:16 -0700 2009 The Sun Also Rises as their fave book of...more...]]> 3 0 false true Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Apr 03 23:19:40 -0700 2009 Fri Apr 03 23:27:31 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Jan 23 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 20 16:45:41 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 23 17:22:00 -0800 2009 more...]]> 1 0 false false Tue Jun 02 16:00:29 -0700 2009 Sat Jun 06 09:26:48 -0700 2009 more...]]>