Motherless Brooklyn
Jonathan Lethem

I bought Motherless Brooklyn right when it came out and then immediately leant it to a friend who soon after became a hopeless junkie. I never saw the book again.

But this year, without a book at the New Haven train station, I picked it up again, and blazed through it in just a couple of days. Lethem’s noir Brooklyn crime novel with a touch of Zen Buddhism and smattering of neuro-divergent ruminations on what it might feel like to be Tourettic was exactly up my alley. I found the writing propulsive and clean, my generally preferred aesthetic, and the love letter of sorts to a mobbed up Carrol Gardens that is now long gone hit my Brooklyn nostalgia hard. Some find the book too clever by half, but I are it up.

Recommended.