false 6085191 3 <b>The acclaimed author of <i>Motherless Brooklyn</i> and <i>The Fortress of Solitude</i> returns with a roar with this gorgeous, searing portrayal of Manhattanites wrapped in their own delusions, desires, and lies.</b><br><br>Chase Insteadman, a handsome, inoffensive fixture on Manhattan's social scene, lives off residuals earned as a child star on a beloved sitcom called <i>Martyr & Pesty</i>. Chase owes his current social cachet to an ongoing tragedy much covered in the tabloids: His teenage sweetheart and fiancée, Janice Trumbull, is trapped by a layer of low-orbit mines on the International Space Station, from which she sends him rapturous and heartbreaking love letters. Like Janice, Chase is adrift, she in Earth's stratosphere, he in a vague routine punctuated by Upper East Side dinner parties.<br><br>Into Chase's cloistered city enters Perkus Tooth, a wall-eyed free-range pop critic whose soaring conspiratorial riffs are fueled by high-grade marijuana, mammoth cheeseburgers, and a desperate ache for meaning. Perkus's countercultural savvy and voracious paranoia draw Chase into another Manhattan, where questions of what is real, what is fake, and who is complicit take on a life-shattering urgency. Along with Oona Laszlo, a self-loathing ghostwriter, and Richard Abneg, a hero of the Tompkins Square Park riot now working as a fixer for the billionaire mayor, Chase and Perkus attempt to unearth the answers to several mysteries that seem to offer that rarest of artifacts on an island where everything can be bought: Truth.<br><br>Like Manhattan itself, Jonathan Lethem's masterpiece is beautiful and tawdry, tragic and forgiving, devastating and antic, a stand-in for the whole world and a place utterly unique. 6262015 book 15 9 2009 Chronic City total:109|5:18|4:43|3:31|2:13|1:4| 109 385 689 46 3 21 false false Mon Jun 15 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Mar 29 20:09:58 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 15 12:46:39 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 1 false false Mon Jan 12 20:53:51 -0800 2009 Wed Oct 14 00:53:03 -0700 2009
1. When do you think the action of the novel occurs? Is there a reason the time was left vague? Is this the "real" New York City?

A:

2. At what point did you begin to suspect that Chase Insteadman was...more...]]> 0 1 false false Thu Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 29 09:03:30 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 29 10:11:00 -0700 2009
Chronic City is the book with which I acknowledge to myself that Jonathan Lethem has joined the ranks of Don DeLillo, Paul Auster, Nicholson Baker, Joanna Scott, William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, and so many others -- which is to say, he has left the vaunted zone...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Oct 25 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 25 12:08:56 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 25 12:09:33 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun May 17 09:48:14 -0700 2009 Sun May 17 09:48:28 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Nov 02 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Oct 28 08:35:38 -0700 2009 Mon Nov 02 10:15:38 -0800 2009
Chronic City is a rich, culture-laden, metaphorical experience of a book. On the outside of it, a former child-actor-turned-socialite encounters a strange man obsessed with a consciousness-altering kind of vase called a chaldron. On the underside of this n...more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Oct 06 10:11:42 -0700 2009 Wed Nov 04 13:05:52 -0800 2009 Chase Insteadman is the character who narrates this unique story of a group of friends who live in Manhattan. Chase was a child star who now floats through life with no particular purpose. His only responsibility is his role as the fiance of Janice Trumbull who is trapped on the International ...more...]]> 4 1 false false Fri Jul 10 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 25 17:31:31 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 25 17:45:49 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Wed Oct 14 09:38:34 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 24 19:34:39 -0700 2009 Greek Orthodox, Romanesque, flying buttress, etc. These guessing words I find junked in my brain in deranged juxtaposition, like files randomly stuffed into cabinets by a dispiri...more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu Nov 05 17:08:40 -0800 2009 Thu Nov 05 17:11:34 -0800 2009 Fortress of Solitude. But here's a quote of his about this book from an interview with Brooklyn Based: "One of my thoughts to myself when I started this book was that it was kind of an inter...more...]]> 4 1 false false Wed Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Jul 07 13:15:14 -0700 2009 Tue Jul 07 13:19:59 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 1 false false Sun Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 31 13:49:31 -0700 2009 Sun Nov 01 19:59:09 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Oct 07 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 11 07:00:08 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 31 15:56:32 -0700 2009 Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem. One of the themes of the book is the very transmutability of frames of reference, which makes it all the more difficult to apply one to the story. I even attempted to read Psmith in the City by P.G....more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Oct 19 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 28 10:01:30 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 19 09:45:36 -0700 2009
I have always found the plot-i-...more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Sep 30 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 19 08:24:35 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 19 08:29:03 -0700 2009 The Fortress of Solitude...more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Oct 30 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 01 16:31:38 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 19 06:19:31 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Sep 02 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 01 08:22:11 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 02 20:18:30 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Sep 28 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 29 22:27:45 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 29 22:31:55 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Oct 14 09:02:30 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 20 15:56:01 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Sun Nov 01 11:15:59 -0800 2009 Sun Nov 01 11:20:16 -0800 2009
Who says I can...more...]]>