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By Bill Altreuter

It is hard for me to say whether Jonathan Lethem's ""The Fortress of Solitude"" resonated with me for any reason apart from this: Lethem's Brooklyn and Letham's pop culture references overlap so nearly perfectly with my own that this magical-realism bildungsroman seems very nearly like a book I might have imagined. I wish I had, flaws and all. There are, I suppose, other books that do some of the the things that this does as well -- stretches reminded me of Richard Price's "The Breaks", to pick an example that nobody I know will know, and I kept being reminded of Michael Chabon, although that comparison is probably more a function of the fact that Lethem, Chabon and I probably have similar record collections than anything else.

Letham is a household favorite, but I'm coming to him a bit late. "As She Crawled Across the Table" is okay, I suppose; the sort of novel that people who really like a particular writer will cite as their favorite, the Steve Forbert of the Lethem shelf, if you know what I mean. And "Motherless Brooklyn" is a detective novel. The fact that it is a detective novel set in a time and a place that I feel a connection to complicates my relationship with the book, but I think it stands on its merits. I think "The Fortress of Solitude" does too, but I wonder to whom one recommends a novel that assumes familiarity with the work of Jack Kirby and Brian Eno. I like a novel that references Black Bolt, but there is a sense in which having that cultural vocabulary available as a shorthand makes what Lethem is doing a pretty specialized sort of book.

I suppose I need to read some more Lethem. I tracked "Fortress of Solitude" down after hearing him interviewed on Bob Edward's program. He's an interesting cat, who works in multiple media, a John Linnell collaborator, for example. I think some further study is in order, and I think I will start with "Gun, with Occasional Music" presently on my nightstand.

UPDATE: Lethem provided a playlist for his new novel here.

Full post as published by Outside Counsel on December 06, 2009 (boomark / email).