Book Review: Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem

This isn't a new book.  In fact, it's not even the first time I've read it.  Eight years ago, I left Manhattan for the unknown borough of Brooklyn.  Looking for space and more diversity (the Upper West Side is a bit sterile), I found perfection in Carroll Gardens.  A bit of a fringe neighborhood, I was curious to find more about my newly adopted home.  The local book store - my absolute favorite place to buy books - Book Court offered this title newly in paperback.  I devoured it on my first read and then bought copies for every one I knew. 

Needless to say, the story is engrossing.  The plot revolves around Lionel Essrog, a wise-guy do-gooder and amateur detective.  He happens to suffer from Tourette's syndrome.  When his beloved boss, Frank Minna, is brutally murdered, Lionel becomes determined to find the killer .  The story is a page-turner, moving through past and present it all comes to a head.  I won't say more for fear of ruining the plot - just read it yourself.

What keeps me coming back to this book isn't just the plot and the characters,  but the landscape.  Set in downtown Brooklyn, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Boreum Hill (I find the lines defining these neighborhoods a little fuzzy), it captures a Brooklyn that is rapidly disappearing. It's the old-school Brooklyn, the one that gave Manhattanites pause.  People were born in this neighborhood, living a couple doors down from their parents.  Neighbors hung out on their stoops and shared local gossip.  When I moved to the area and read the book, there were traces.  The local coffee grinder and bakery opened in the 1910's.  Italian restaurants, established in the 1950's still served authentic family fare.  Nothing about the neighborhood was fancy, but it was authentic and charming and had character.

As I wax nostaglic about a neighborhood I esentially invaded, I may come off as a hypocrite.  The neighborhood went through extensive gentrification because of people like me.  At one point,  a new restaurant, shop or bar opened on Smith Street each week.  Taking the F train at rush hour became more stressful as it filled with commuters.  The neighbors who hung out on the stoops sold their homes for a high profit and moved somewhere more quiet.  And soon it was my time to leave.

Visiting that area now, Smith Street is completely unrecognizable.  A few establishments have held steady, but for the most part it's all shiny and new.  Reading Motherless Brooklyn again now, I'm shocked at how quickly the neighborhood transformed.  The books seems so important now, documenting a time and place that changed so rapidly.