Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
Read by Geoffrey Cantor
Published 1999 by Doubleday
Source: bought this one

Publisher's Summary: 

Lionel Essrog is Brooklyn's very own Human Freakshow, an orphan whose Tourettic impulses drive him to bark, count, and rip apart language in startling and original ways. Together with three veterans of the St. Vincent's Home for Boys, he works for small-time mobster Frank Minna's limo service cum detective agency. Life without Frank, the charismatic King of Brooklyn, would be unimaginable.

When Frank is fatally stabbed, Lionel's world is suddenly turned upside down, and this outcast who has trouble even conversing attempts to untangle the threads of the case, while trying to keep the words straight in his head.

My Thoughts:

Shortly after seeing the Edward Norton movie adaptation of this book, I was delighted to find the audiobook as one of Apple Books' daily deals. The Big Guy and I had seen the movie with friends and we were all impressed with the movie - the story, the acting, the setting. I was really looking forward to having the story fleshed out by the book. 

Almost immediately it became clear that one of the liberties that Norton took with the adaptation was to set the movie about 40 years earlier than the book. Ok, I thought, I can do that. In fact, I thought it might help to keep me from picturing the movie if the sets and costumes are completely different. And for the first hour of the book, I found that the movie had stuck quite closely to the book. After that, though, almost the only part of the book that Norton had taken from the book was Lionel working to solve Frank's death, both with and without the help of the other three men Frank had saved from the orphanage (coined "Motherless Brooklyn" by Frank's brother). It was, to be honest, more than a little disappointing; I had really enjoyed Norton's story. I'm sure, though, that it was an even bigger disappointment to Lethem to find that Norton didn't care for his plot at all. 

I kept at it for a couple of reasons. First of all, Geoffrey Cantor did a terrific job of reading the book, particularly in giving voice to Lionel. Then, the plot of the book drew me in. There was every bit as much intrigue as there was in the movie and almost as much complexity to it. It's well written neo-noir with characters and dialogue that made me see why Norton had chosen to set the book in the 1940's. Finally, Lionel is such an interesting and unique character who I found even more interesting in the book than I had in the movie. I've never known anyone with Tourette's Syndrome so I can't speak to how realistic Lionel's tics were but it certainly felt believable to served to make me want Lionel to succeed. 

If you've seen the movie, you've been forewarned - this is not that book; well, not entirely. If you haven't seen the movie yet, read (no, listen!) to the book first. Then see the movie. Because it really is very good.