Continuing from part 1 with Jonathan Lethem. We’re now in his later phases with his books being more mainstream (or possibly urban fantasy like Jonathan Carroll). These books are just as good (if not better) than his earlier novels and garner many more awards, including a MacArther Fellowship.

Motherless Brooklyn is the story of Lionel Essrog, a detective working for a mobster detective agency, who has to deal with Tourette Syndrome. He is forced to investigate the death of his leader Frank Minna and deal with the tics and problems created by his disease. The book is nominally about the murder investigation, but more about the investigation of one’s consciousness. Motherless Brooklyn is not much of a detective story, but that is by choice. This was Lethem’s breakout novel. It won him the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction and the Gold Dagger award for crime fiction.

Lethem followed up Motherless Brooklyn with The Fortress of Solitude. As the title implies, the book involves Superman. The book is a semi-autobiographical look at two boys growing up in Brooklyn. They are of different races and background and are forced apart by those differences. On the street where they live they can be best friends, but out in the harsh glare of school they can’t talk. Lethem ventures into urban fantasy with the appearance of a magic ring that confers some super powers on it’s wearer. Major plot elements include father-son relationships, race relationships and friendship against a changing urban background.

After spending a lot of time on East Coast settings, Lethem moved his next book, You Don’t Love Me Yet, in California.  This is the one Lethem novel that I haven’t read. It’s about a alternative rock band in California and is intentionally lighter in tone than his previous books.

Lethem has also published four collections of short stories, one collection of essays and a novella. He also resurrected the Steve Gerber comic Omega the Unknown in a ten issue mini series. He has also started The Promiscuous Project, a collection of short stories and song lyrics that he has made available for others to use at a nominal price. This was started by his essay on copyright and influence in writing. He wrote the essay using fragments and quotes from other authors combined together to make the essay.

I’ll be back to finish with Jonathan Lethem and his latest novel Chronic City tomorrow.