Rating: 
Summary: It tugged my boat
Review: A friend gave me this book when I moved to Brooklyn (the area of Bklyn where the book takes place) and as he handed it over said "It's not very good, but you will appreciate it."Later that week, I mentioned that I had gotten Motherless Brooklyn to another friend (both of which have great literary taste in my opinion) and she said essentially the same thing. Now that I am nearing the end (which I am about to give up on because I really don't care what happens) I can say that reading this book is like watching Joe Millionaire while waiting for a better show to come on afterwards. It is in ways compelling and in others completely removed from the "reality" it is trying to represent. But in the end, you just want t to end so you can start enjoying the next show. Anyway, there are a million better books out there, don't bother wasting your money.
Rating: 
Summary: The word master
Review: I have never read a novel by Jonathan Lethem before, never heard of him, but the reviews for this book looked promising. This is a "not to miss" piece of literature. It is thoroughly engrossing and entertaining. I listened to it as an audio book, and the reader, was wonderful. This book is one of the best I've ever read (or listened to). Try it, you won't be sorry!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent and enlightening
Review: Jonathan Lethem has more than a way with words, as many reviews state, because he has a way with plot, character, and theme as well. Lionel Essrog, his main character, has Tourette's Syndrome, but it's not a gimmick ... it's an integral characteristic of an interesting man. As Lionel attempts to unravel the central mystery, it becomes clear that he is more than he appears, both to the readers and the people around him. I came to like him very much, and better, I came to understand him. There is no higher praise to an author than that he opened a new world to his readers, and Motherless Brooklyn is one of those rare books that does just that. Lethem has gotten rave reviews for his new novel, Fortress of Solitude, but you should start here. Now that he's getting recognition, Lethem will be a literary force for the near future.
Rating:
Summary: ...about an outcast, finding himself...
Review: I felt a little sorry for one of the main characters in this book. It's a clear reminder that the friendships we choose are the foundation of our progress. It is also an interesting NYC area (Brooklyn) psychological character study. The plot did not really capture me like other books I have read that have won Book Awards. It did make for some good reading and some very well-written & unforgettable lines. A recent college graduate raved about the book which made me curious. His excitement was a bit overdone as far as I was concerned because the story sort of fell flat with me. The book did succeed in keeping me awake (through a plane ride). One line I took away was, "Don't tug my boat!"
Rating: 
Summary: Reinventing a Genre
Review: We're all familiar with the conventions of the hard-boiled detective genre: men of few words, fisticuffs in back alleys, rougue cops, mysterious women with long legs and dark secrets, and so forth. In this brilliant novel, Lethem has turned all of these conventions on their ear. Instead of a man of few words, our protagonist (Lionel Essrog) is a man of too many words... he has Tourette's Syndrome. The ordinary detective slowly uncovers clues through a mixture of intimidation and verbal trickery. Lionel, on the other hand, is ridiculed or roughed up by nearly everyone he meets. And still he brilliantly tracks down leads and uses his apparent weaknesses to his advantage. All other conventions are also reversed. Dark secrets turn out to be less dark than we imagined. Instead of being coy and mysterious, the women practice Zen and say what they mean. Lethem has done an excellent job of replicating the tension, pace, and intrique of the very best detective novels, but he has done so in a way that no one else has before. And the brilliant writing and masterful descriptions of New York City make it easy to see why this novel has garnered so much praise from people and publications that ordinarily don't care much for genre writing. Fans of the genre, read this book to get a taste of something wonderfully different. Fans of literature, read this book to experience the very best of the detective genre. Also, if you liked this book, try Martin Amis's NightTrain.
Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: This was a great book. I reccommend it to anyone who enjoys a good whodunit, or has an interest in Tourettes syndrome. I plan to buy more from this author ASAP
Rating:
Summary: Communication breakdown
Review: I read an interview with Lethem in which he said that while writing the book, he learned to see Tourette's Syndrome as a kind of continuum, and that all human beings are on it somewhere and show Tourettic impulses. He said that if the book succeeds, readers will diagnose themselves to see where they fit on that continuum. As someone who found it necessary to research interviews on Lethem to better understand the book, I learned that I'm more like Lionel Essrog than I'd like. That's only one reason the book is a success, though. Many other reviewers have pointed out the moments of hilarity and poignancy, the appeal of Lionel as a narrator, etc., so I'd like to add a few other things: One aspect ties to what's mentioned above -- the universality of Tourette's. Lionel ties his affliction to conspiracies, guilt, insomnia, etc., showing how so many emotions and trains of thought have to do with trying to touch or change the world and how futile those efforts can seem. Lionel's interrogation of his Tourette's mind helps it rise above literary gimmickry. I also liked how Lethem showed the difficulty of controlling language and communicating effectively with other people. Lionel tics around nearly everybody, with the exception (most of the time, anyway) of Kimmery, who is a soothing presence and accepts his Tourette's more than most people. Even around Frank Minna, whom Lionel adores, he tics. Maybe that's because Lionel likes the way Minna talks -- his pat phrases ("wheels within wheels," "tell your story walking," "tugging the boat," etc.) form Lionel's chief memories of Minna, and he repeats them frequently. I think he could be envious. Besides Kimmery, Lionel has few other situations in which he can be tic-free. A couple of those are when he listens to Prince and when he sits at the Papaya Czar, both because their art mirrors his chaotic brain. He feels validated and comforted because he is like them. Besides showing the human need for connection, Lionel also shows how language and communication break down when you're outside your comfort zone. Other characters show this, too -- Tony, who turns vicious because he is so disturbed by Lionel's outbursts; Detective Seminole, who misreads Lionel's tics completely and gets the wrong idea about the case; even Minna completely loses his cool-guy persona when he's around the so-formal-they're-scary Matricardi and Rockaforte and the silence of his mother. Oh yeah, and the book's so fun to read you don't want it to end, either.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Much Here
Review: This book has some flashes of good writing, especially in dialogue. However, that was about it. I kept wishing for more. The mystery plot did not have much in it and was summed up in about a page at the end by the narrator/main character. The main character/narrator has Tourette's syndrom. This was a great idea full of potential. Unfortunately, soon into the book this became an impediment. As obsessive and compulsive are the sufferers of the syndrome, so was this author in describing the syndrome. Page after page, time after time, the narrator would launch into the effects of the syndrome. It got tedious, interrupted the flow of the story and, after the first several passages, did not add to knowledge about the syndrome. These descriptive passages added nothing to plot nor the character. On the positive side, the main character shows that Tourette's does not make the sufferer less intelligent. He does solve the mystery. There is some good writing, unfortunately it was interrupted as I described above. I did learn something about Tourette's (it just did not have to be repeated). In sum, I feel the author missed hitting the mark in his use of the Tourette's. The character was neither amusing nor sympathetic and after teh pounding of the explanatory passages, got plain tiresome.
Rating:
Summary: Memorable and re-readable
Review: This is simply one of the best novels I have ever read. It is sweet, exciting, sad, and very funny. I was completely taken by the lead character and his Tourette's -- there are a couple of hilarious scenes I can still recall though I read it at least a year ago. In one, he's being patted down by a cop, and his Tourette's gets the better of him and he starts patting down the cop. "Now stop that!" the cop says. In another, someone puts into his mind the task of deciding by taste in which factories the Oreos in a package were made -- Tourette's is off to the races. And all along, the guy is trying to live a life and find love and do the best he can despite an extremely difficult start in life. I fell in love with Essrog.
Rating:
Summary: Lionel Deathclam!
Review: I began reading this book on the day I started the worst job of my life. I found its Tourettic main character Lionel Essrog, so compelling, that my mood was instantly elevated, and I stayed at that job probably far longer than I should have. Now I have a much better job, so I went back for a second read, and was happy to find the book held up so well. Lionel, the detective and narrator of "Motherless Brooklyn", is prone to sudden verbal tics -- he'll start rhyming his own name, for example -- or to adjusting people's collars. This makes him perhaps the most unsuited detective in the history of the genre. He would certainly not be out of place in a Coen Brothers movie (I'm thinking John Turturro here, or maybe Steve Buscemi, who read the audiobook). Indeed the whole plot is Coen-esque. Lionel and three other characters are runners for a very small-time Brooklyn mob associate named Frank Minna, in the decidedly unglamorous Boerum Hill neighborhood. When Minna is found dead in a dumpster by the Pulaski Bridge (a horribly prosaic fate), his men are hunted one by one, and it's up to Lionel to find out who done it, and why. Jonathan Lethem populates the story with oddly-named characters such as Kimmery and Mr. Foible and Detective Seminole. With a world full of names such as these, it's easy to see why Lionel tics as much as he does. Along the way are fascinating asides into how Lionel's mind works. He notes that Prince is perhaps the first Tourettic singer, and there's a glorious two page essay on the MAD Magazine art of Don Martin. Lethem also throws in some great New York-specific baseball references (Lee Mazzilli, Bucky Dent), and has Lionel think, while eating soup, "Tinker to Evers to chicken". The mystery held less of my attention on the second read-through; for some reason, I was more confused than I was the first time. I think the two New Jersey gangsters, Matricardi and Rockaforte (or "Bricco and Stuckface") are a little off-key, but perhaps that's because they both have the overly-precise speech patterns of Joe Mantegna ("We wish to comfort you on this day of pain and misunderstanding..."). On the whole, "Motherless Brooklyn" is a very inventive spin on language, and uses its New York setting extremely well, hitting everything from the pattern of Upper East Side traffic lights, to the solitude of the G train. I dare you read it, and then not have Lionel-esque verbal tics for days afterward. Liable Guessfrog!
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