Motherless Brooklyn (novel)
{{Short description|1999 novel by Jonathan Lethem}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{No plot|date=February 2021}}
{{Infobox book
| name = Motherless Brooklyn
| title_orig =
| translator =
| image = Motherless Brooklyn.jpg
| caption =
| author = Jonathan Lethem
| cover_artist =
| country = United States
| language = English
| series =
| genre = Detective novel
| publisher = Doubleday
| release_date = 1999
| media_type = Print
| pages =
| isbn = 0-385-49183-2
| dewey = 813.54 21
| congress = PS3562.E8544 M68 1999
| oclc = 40723751
}}
Motherless Brooklyn is a novel by Jonathan Lethem that was first published in 1999. Told in first person, the story follows Lionel Essrog, a private investigator who has Tourette's, a disorder marked by involuntary tics. Essrog works for Frank Minna, a small-time owner of a "seedy and makeshift" detective agency disguised as a transportation company. Together, Essrog and three other characters who are all orphans from Brooklyn—Tony, Danny, and Gilbert—call themselves "the Minna Men".{{cite web|url=http://www.salon.com/books/review/1999/09/23/lethem/index.html|title=Jonathan Lethem: Motherless Brooklyn|work=Salon.com|date=September 23, 1999|author=Krist, Gary|access-date=November 29, 2009}} The novel was adapted into a 2019 film.
Critical reception
The novel won the 1999 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction{{cite web|url=http://bookcritics.org/awards/past_awards/page_2/|title=All Past National Book Critics Circle Award Winners and Finalists - Page 2|publisher=National Book Critics Circle|access-date=November 29, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110316111838/http://bookcritics.org/awards/past_awards/page_2|archive-date=March 16, 2011|url-status=dead}} and the 2000 Gold Dagger award for crime fiction.{{cite web|url=http://www.thecwa.co.uk/daggers/index.html|title=The CWA Dagger Awards|publisher=The Crime Writers' Association|date=October 27, 2008|access-date=November 29, 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120723043537/http://www.thecwa.co.uk/daggers/index.html|archive-date=July 23, 2012}}
Albert Mobilio of The New York Times wrote:
Under the guise of a detective novel, Lethem has written a more piercing tale of investigation, one revealing how the mind drives on its own "wheels within wheels." Unlike the stock detective novel it shadows, the thriller in which clarity emerges on the final page, Motherless Brooklyn immerses us in the mind's dense thicket, a place where words split and twine in an ever-deepening tangle.{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/17/books/what-makes-him-tic.html |title=What Makes Him Tic?|author=Mobilio, Albert|date=October 17, 1999|work=The New York Times|access-date=November 29, 2009}}
Gary Krist of Salon wrote:
Motherless Brooklyn has a few problems—including some cartoon-like stock characters and one scene near the end that flirts with maudlin sentimentality—but it works far better than the average hip postmodern novel in terms of sheer emotional impact. Because Lethem never lets the metaphorical and linguistic possibilities of his narrator's illness overshadow his immensely appealing humanity, we really care about Lionel and his search for his mentor's killer.
Film adaptation
{{main|Motherless Brooklyn}}
Actor and filmmaker Edward Norton acquired the film rights almost immediately after the book was published, but production started only in February 2018.{{Cite web|url=https://deadline.com/2018/02/bruce-willis-gugu-mbatha-raw-alec-baldwin-motherless-brooklyn-1202278568/|title=Bruce Willis, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Alec Baldwin & More Board Edward Norton's 'Motherless Brooklyn'|first=Amanda|last=N'Duka|website=Deadline Hollywood|date=5 February 2018|access-date=29 December 2021}} Norton wrote, produced, directed, and starred together with Willem Dafoe, Bruce Willis, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Alec Baldwin. The film differs significantly from the book.{{Cite web|url=https://slate.com/culture/2019/11/motherless-brooklyn-book-movie-comparison-differences.html|title=All the Ways the Motherless Brooklyn Movie Departs From Jonathan Lethem's Novel|first=Marissa|last=Martinelli|date=4 November 2019|website=Slate.com|access-date=29 December 2021}} Regarding the transposition of the story from the book's contemporary time to the fifties, and Lethem's very literal interpretation of neo-noir characters, Lethem said that "the alchemical quality of the written word makes it okay. But if you start photographing that, it's going to look like Halloween, like they're dressing up".{{Cite web|url=https://brooklynbased.com/2019/10/30/motherless-brooklyn-lethem-norton-book-film/|title=Revisiting 'Motherless Brooklyn' | Brooklyn Based|date=30 October 2019|website=Brooklynbased.com|access-date=29 December 2021}}
The film had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival on 30 August 2019{{cite news |last1=Debruge |first1=Peter |title=Film Review: 'Motherless Brooklyn' |url=https://variety.com/2019/film/reviews/motherless-brooklyn-review-1203320042/ |access-date=October 18, 2019 |work=Variety.com |date=August 31, 2019}} and was released in theaters on November 1, 2019.{{Cite web |last=Hammond |first=Pete |date=2019-08-31 |title=Edward Norton's Passion Project 'Motherless Brooklyn' Has World Premiere 20 Years After He Pitched It – Telluride Film Festival |url=https://deadline.com/2019/08/edward-norton-motherless-brooklyn-world-premiere-telluride-1202708669/ |access-date=2023-11-21 |website=Deadline |language=en-US}}
The film was not successful at the box office, with Slate's Marissa Martinelli summarizing that "Norton's film often feels less like an adaptation and more like a work of fan fiction 20 years in the making, with Norton borrowing Lethem's protagonist and the broad strokes of his plot to create something almost entirely new".{{Cite web|url=https://fortune.com/2019/12/18/literary-adaptations-box-office-bombs-2019-goldfinch-bernadette-motherless-brooklyn/|title=Why These High-Profile Book Adaptations Bombed at the Box Office in 2019|website=Fortune.com|access-date=29 December 2021}}
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- [http://www.postmodernmystery.com/motherless_brooklyn.html Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem, reviewed by Ted Gioia (Postmodern Mystery)]
{{Jonathan Lethem}}
{{Gold Dagger Award}}
{{Tourette syndrome}}
Category:Novels by Jonathan Lethem
Category:American detective novels
Category:Works about Tourette syndrome
Category:Novels set in Brooklyn
Category:Doubleday (publisher) books