Motherless
Brooklyn
Jonathan Letham
Knopf, 1999, $24.
Jonathan Letham Moves Again.
In the hands of a lesser writer this could have been a disaster
in any of a hundred different ways. Lionel (say it like it rhymes
with vinyl) Essrog is a Minna Man, one of four junior detectives
in a detective agency that is slim cover for a small mob operation.
When Frank Minna, the founder and operator of the L&L Agency
is murdered it falls to the four Minna Men to find out the who and
they why of it. This could be the start of yet another painful mystery
series, Lionel Essrog, Tourette's Detective, his ongoing syndrome
symptomatic of each case he gets involved in. But not in Letham's
hands. Letham has spun novels in many genres and is unlikely to
get sucked down into the mire -- unless Brooklyn itself is genre
or mire inescapable of itself.
The rhythms of the book go beyond Lionel's rhymic tics and exclamations.
Sometimes it felt like reading Vonnegut at his prime the writing
shifted here and there into subtle perceptive asides, lists, notes,
then back into the flow of the narrative. Watching Lionel and the
manner other people have of dealing with him you begin to agree
that Tourette's is the lens that we can view life through. If this
is an accurate portrayal then the syndrome may be latent in many
of us, only needing a small push to go appear full blown. Unlike
many recent novels I've read Letham manages the ending well. It
is satisfying, leaves you wanting to follow the characters further
but doesn't leave loose ends all over the place in an obvious set
up for a sequel. Maybe not The Great American Novel, but certainly
a Very Good one.