About this guide
The questions, author biography, and suggested reading list that follow are
intended to enhance your group's reading and discussion of Jonathan Lethem's
Motherless Brooklyn, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. In
a wonderfully original twist on the classic hard-boiled detective novel, Lethem
presents a narrator with Tourette's Syndrome and gives his unusual hero a way
with words that at first intrigues and then totally captivates the reader. Even
among the orphan misfits and oddballs growing up in St. Vincent's Home for Boys
in Brooklyn, New York, Lionel Essrog stands out. In the grip of Tourette's
Syndrome, Lionel is burdened with uncontrollable urges to count and tap things,
stroke floors and doorframes, and, most embarrassing of all, kiss his classmates.
But nothing is quite so troubling to Lionel as his painstakingly suppressed
verbal tics, the strings of odd phrases and bursts of insults that bubble through
his mind. He retreats to the Home's library, hoping to find in that vast
repository of words a clue to his own language. Lionel's liberation comes from a
far less likely source, however. Frank Minna, a local tough guy and fixer,
selects him and three other boys to do odd jobs, and over the years shapes the
motley crew into the "Minna Men," a highly unorthodox detective agency. Minna
relishes Lionel's tics and quirks and under his tutelage, Lionel gives free reign
his Tourettic self. So when Minna is left for dead in a Dumpster, Lionel is
determined to be a real detective and find the killers.
In an investigation that quickly takes on the sporadic rhythms of his own mind,
Lionel faces off with his partners at the agency; the two eccentric, aging
mobsters Minna reverently referred to as "The Clients"; Zen Buddhists on
Manhattan's Upper East Side; and Minna's tough-talking, very alluring widow,
Julia. Ever present is Brooklyn itself--the scruffy neighborhoods where
old-fashioned bosses and their unspoken rules hold at bay both the anarchic
impulses that simmer among Brooklyn's multiethnic population and the slick,
Manhattan-style sophistication encroaching from Brooklyn Heights and other yuppie
enclaves.
Written with sly humor and filled with dazzling wordplay, Motherless
Brooklyn takes the traditional conventions of detective fiction--a hero alone
in his quest for justice, a plot that twists and turns with each new clue, and a
cast of characters whose motivations are revealed with mounting suspense--to new
heights of storytelling inventiveness.
For discussion
- For readers who come to Motherless Brooklyn with little knowledge of
Brooklyn, what devices, beyond straightforward descriptions, does Lethem use to
capture its distinctive atmosphere?
- Lionel's wordplay includes variations on his own name--Liable Guesscog, Final
Escrow, Ironic Pissclaim, for example. How does this particular quirk serve to
establish Lionel's sense of himself and his place in the world? Is there an
internal logic about the variations or are they simply haphazard?
- The Minna Men are all orphans, first introduced as teenagers. Discuss how
each of them carves out an identity for himself and why this is important to
them. How do the initial descriptions Lionel provides of Tony [p. 39], Gil [p.
40], and Danny [p. 42Ð43] foreshadow the relationships among the four as adults?
Do their characters change in the course of the novel?
- Does Minna see himself as more than a boss to the young men? Does he make a
conscious effort to turn the group into a family or does the family feeling
develop from the needs of the young men themselves? What evidence, if any, is
there that Minna's interest in them is emotional as well as practical? In what
ways does Minna's relationship with his own mother and older brother influence
the way he treats the Minna Men?
- Why does Lionel say "it was Minna who brought me the language, Minna and
Court Street that let me speak" [p.37]? What parts do Tony, Gil, and Danny play
in helping Lionel accept his Tourette's Syndrome? How do their individual ways of
dealing with Lionel differ? Which man's support is the most significant to Lionel
both as a teenager and as an adult?
- In describing Gil's explanation of Minna's kidnapping and murder, Lionel says
"English might have been his fourth or fifth language from the sound of it" [p.
94]. Why does Lethem include this observation and other examples of mangled
language throughout the book? How do they put Lionel's own "language
difficulties" in perspective?
- In addition to Lionel's wonderful, often poetic riffs, what other specific
language patterns does Lethem employ to bring the various characters to life? For
example, how do Lionel's conversation with the homicide detective [pp. 109Ð111],
his initial encounter with Kimmery [p. 135] and his interview with Matricardi and
Rockaforte [pp. 176Ð177] create impressions of these particular people that are
independent of Lionel's own perceptions?
- What role does Julia play in the novel? In what ways is she the stereotypical
"dame" of other hard-boiled detective novels and films and how is she different?
Do you think Julia is right when she says "No woman would ever want you, Lionel.
. . . That's not really true. They might want you. . . . But they'll never be
fair to you" [p. 297]?
- Is Kimmery also a stock figure in this tradition? How does Kimmery's reaction
to Lionel's Tourettic behavior differ from the reactions of the other characters?
Does the brief, romantic interlude between Lionel and Kimmery advance the plot
and if so, in what ways? How does it affect your understanding of Lionel? Is
Kimmery "fair" to Lionel?
- The Zen Buddhist communities in New York and Maine are not at all what they
seem. Are the characters who participate in the Buddhist Zendo--Lionel's brother,
Gerald, Julia, and Kimmery--influenced by Buddhist teachings? Do the principles
of Zen Buddhism (either as expressed in the book by Kimmery or from your
knowledge) illuminate some of the themes Lethem explores?
- Does Lionel in fact become a "real detective"? Do his techniques fit your
definition of detective work? Kimmery, for example, is skeptical about both his
intentions and his working style [p. 255]. Do you think her evaluation is
accurate? In other detective books you may have read, are the heroes completely
removed from the personal aspects of the cases they investigate? Is the solution
to Minna's murder fully satisfying in light of the evidence presented in the rest
of the book?
- At several points in the book, Lethem makes direct reference to the genres
that inform Motherless Brooklyn--both the classic detective novel and
"wiseguy" novels and movies. For example, Minna teases Gil for saying "piece,"
rather than "gun" [p. 8]; and Lionel asks "Have you ever felt, in the course of
reading a detective novel, a guilty thrill of relief at having a character
murdered before he can step on to the page and burden you with his actual
existence?" [p. 119]. In another passage, Lionel compares himself to the standard
set in detective literature: "So many detectives have been knocked out and fallen
into such strange, swirling darknesses . . . and yet I have nothing to contribute
to this painful tradition" [p. 205]. Why does Lethem include these references?
Are they simply there for "comic relief" or do they serve another purpose?
- By using Lionel as narrator, Lethem is following a long tradition in
detective fiction. In what ways would the impact on the reader be different if a
third-person voice told the story? Why do you think he chose to use a narrator
with Tourette's Syndrome? Is this purely a literary device, giving him the
opportunity to play with language as an author? Do the classic detective
heroes--for example, Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade and Raymond Chandler's Philip
Marlowe--have quirks comparable to Lionel's?
- Does the title of the book refer only to the four orphans who make up the
Minna Men? In what ways is Brooklyn itself "motherless"?
- The Voice Literary Supplement wrote "Lethem loves to cross-wire popular
genres and watch the sparks fly." In addition to the conventions of the
hard-boiled detective novel, what other genre does Lethem draw on in
Motherless Brooklyn?
Suggestions for further reading Paul Auster, The New York Trilogy; Jimmy
Breslin, The Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight; Lawrence Block, The Burglar in
the Rye; Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye, The Big Sleep; Dashiell Hammett,
The Maltese Falcon; Lowell Handler, Twitch and Shout; Carl Hiaasen, Lucky You;
Elmore Leonard, Get Shorty; Ross Macdonald, The Galton Case; Gwyn Hyman Rubio,
Icy Sparks; Oliver Sacks, An Anthropologist on Mars, The Man Who Mistook His Wife
for a Hat; Jim Thompson, The Killer Inside Me.
Also available from Vintage Books:
As She Climbed Across the
Table - 0-375-70012-9
- $12.00 (Can. $16.95)
Girl in Landscape
- 0-375-70012-9
- $12.00 (Can. $16.95)
The Vintage Book of
Amnesia - 0-375-70661-5
- $14.00 (Can. $21.00)
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