Brooklyn Crime Novel

by Jonathan Lethem, Andrea Silvestri (Translator)

Tra le strade della Brooklyn dei primi anni settanta, in cui le avvisaglie della gentrificazione che cambierà il quartiere si intravedono solamente, si svolge un rituale quotidiano: a volte del denaro viene ceduto, altre degli oggetti cambiano proprietario, ma sempre viene riaffermato il potere del più forte. I ragazzi lo chiamano la danza. La violenza è ovunque, ed è una valuta che, chi abita in questa zona, conosce e deve saper utilizzare o gestire. Per i bambini, bianchi, neri o mulatti, la strada è un palcoscenico in cui ogni giorno sono costretti a esibire la loro forza, le loro debolezze e vergogne. Dietro le quinte, apparentemente distanti ma inestricabilmente legati, si nascondono gli altri attori: genitori, poliziotti, lavoratori, librai, proprietari immobiliari, giornalisti, politici, insegnanti. Culture ed etnie si mescolano tra microcriminalità, povertà e sogni di riscatto. Perseguitati e carnefici, vittime e criminali, tuttavia, possono facilmente scambiarsi di posto, e un quartiere che oggi sembra un’oasi per ricchi può aprire gli armadi della memoria e ricordare il suo passato, le sue storie e quelle di chi ci vive e ci ha vissuto. Attraverso una serie di scene tra loro lontane nel tempo, ma interconnesse nello spazio, Brooklyn Crime Novel dà forma a un mosaico che racconta la storia e le strade di una delle realtà più controverse e iconiche della Grande Mela, con le sue ipocrisie e le sue contraddizioni, una storia avvincente di una comunità, di speranze e illusioni e di un delitto che ha cambiato tutto per sempre.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Crime, New York, Mystery, Historical, Novels

544 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2023

About the author

Jonathan Allen Lethem (born February 19, 1964) is an American novelist, essayist and short story writer.

His first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music, a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was published in 1994. It was followed by three more science fiction novels. In 1999, Lethem published Motherless Brooklyn, a National Book Critics Circle Award-winning novel that achieved mainstream success. In 2003, he published The Fortress of Solitude, which became a New York Times Best Seller.

In 2005, he received a MacArthur Fellowship

Reviews

[N · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Lots of people in lots of places must at some point have to deal with the fact that someone they once knew has written about the time and place that they remember from their coming of age” (Lethem 314).

And so, this quote from the narrator of Professor Lethem’s latest novel is how this wonderful, intricate novel is best described.

It is biting and wistful, with pangs of unrequited desire and the specter of real life crime and violence permeated by the boys of Brooklyn often on the horizon.

He writes a structure of the second person collective, a series of voices that permeate each of the intimate vignettes that capture a slice of Brooklyn life from a span of over half a century.

As the novel unfolds, the dramatis personae include a black boy named C; the Spoiled white boy, Slipper, another charismatic black boy, and The Wheeze, a sage like character who has lived in Brooklyn his whole life, with encyclopedic knowledge of his borough.

Lethem is one of the greatest Brooklyn writers, period. He is the only writer I know of who captures Brooklyn with a musicality with the beat of a poet.

When he writes about the familiar streets I walk on every day—including all the archetypes of communities I often find myself surrounded with on the street, on the subway, on landmarks—he is the only writer besides Edwidge Danticat in recent memory that can describe places I’ve been and seen with such bravado and intimacy that I felt I was a character in this novel, “when the black kids from around Dean Street fall in with groups from other neighborhoods, a situation that happens frequently on graffiti runs, they’re faced with wonderment” (Lethem 46).

There’s a hilarious interior monologue about Charleston Chews- (one of my favorite candies) that Lethem describes as “dried turds” (Lethem 130) that was laugh out loud funny. There are moments of the sardonic narrator talking about a pretentious Oscar nominated actor who ends up living on Dean Street.

Most of the novel takes place in and around Dean Street (which I actually live nearby) which has seen its share of crime, gentrification, property costs and taxes going up, and quirky buildings and landmarks that shut down and are replaced by chain stores and brands.

For me the heart of “Brooklyn Crime Novel” is that it is a semi exploration of the same themes of unrequited, queer love that “The Fortress of Solitude” so heartbreakingly etched into my reading psyche.

The white boy and the black boy (who I thought were mirror images of Mingus and Dylan) are able to consummate their desire for each other and to keep exploring the possibility of their sexual attraction into blossoming into something more than sex, “they navigate pain and confusion on a daily basis” (Lethem 199).

Mr. Lethem might be known for his speculative works like “Girl in Landscape” or “Gun with Occasional Music”, riffing on Raymond Chandler, Samuel Delany, and Ursula K. LeGuin.

But I feel his best work is the work that comes straight from the autobiographical sensibility. When writing about time and place, the shifting of communities, the complexities of gentrification, intersected with sexuality and queer relationships- this is where Jonathan Lethem is a master writer, “this silence then may not be that of memories stored not in the mind but exported…into free space” (Lethem 36).

I immediately drew back on some of my favorite New York novels such as “Jazz” by Toni Morrison, “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison, “If Beale Street Could Talk” by James Baldwin, and “The Age of Innocence” by Edith Wharton, and the memoir “The Color of Water” by James McBride that I felt was interconnected with the structure and how action is developed.

Perhaps Lethem might be the only white male writer for me who writes about the heartbreaking and horrible repercussions of systemic racism meant to keep black boys down, the white boys often given the upper hand, truths that are sobering and quite alarming to grasp.

This haunting sentence from this novel sums up “Brooklyn Crime Novel” in the most heartbreaking of ways, “such a world either did or didn’t once exist. You decide” (Lethem 109).

I don’t think he can resist writing about melancholy and loss in any of his work—and I am always grateful when I allow my heart to break each time I read one of Jonathan Lethem’s novels.

[AndiReads · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a truly unusual book! Lethem weaves together snippets of lives in Brooklyn in the 70's. Many of the characters are nameless but you have no choice but to read on as their narratives are so compelling.

The novel is social commentary and historical there is a mystery sewn throughout. You have never read a story like this and you are not likely to forget it! You will continue to read making sense of the snippets and watch as the characters change and transform until it is hard to determine who are the good guys and who are the bad. Pick up this book and take an astounding trip to Dean Street Brooklyn!
#Ecco #BrooklynCrimeNovel #jonathanLethem

[Shereadbookblog · Rating 4 out of 5]

Through a series of interrelated vignettes, this takes the reader back to 1970s Brooklyn and the beginning of its gentrification. Focusing primarily on the young boys from the Dean Street neighborhood, it introduces the mixed cultures and ethnicities, their interconnections and the territories at a time when mostly petty crime was prevalent. It follows some of the characters into more contemporary times, charting their lives as well as the displacement of the displacers in the neighborhood.

I loved the momentous, not so momentous, and infamous history that was interspersed in the story telling, along with the iconic events/objects from the 70s. Coming from the perspective of being a New Yorker at heart and someone who actually remembers the 70s, I do wonder if others might be lost by some of the references and want to “Google” them.

The writing is a bit different from a typical narrative; it might be off putting to some. For those willing to tackle something with an atypical structure, it will be a satisfying read.

Thanks to #netgalley and @eccobooks for the ARC.

[Mustaqim Malek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jonathan Lethem returns to the place where he came to be and this time, to give a fan like me a crime novel in the most literal sense of the word, tag and genre.

By now, I know not to have any certain expectation in a Lethem's novel. The man was never one to be boxed in to a conventional style of writing and it's no different here. Although experimental, Lethem never overindulge or let his style, whether it be the writing structure or prose gets in a way of the story. Brooklyn Crime Novel is a faux-memoir where the main character is Brooklyn the borough, itself. There are several different cast of rotating characters that would filled up a dramatis personae full but they come and go, emphasizing that Brooklyn is a monster that looms large and all devouring.

There are 124 parts, taking place in the 70s and going forward as the novel progresses on, albeit hopscotching around and are written in such short manner that it feels more like a vignettes of things that Brooklyn demands to happen rather than an episodic crime thriller that just so happened in the borough. With the very short, very minimalistic and unadorned prose, gave it a cold, distant and moody documentary-like memoire but it was never dull or dry. There are themes of racism, of change and even metacriticism of fiction sets in Brooklyn.

Jonathan Lethem on Brooklyn Crime Novel is a sprawling Shakespearean Tragedy. It's experimental but never to the point that it takes away or distract from the story. Jonathan Lethem is a master of combining literary and pulp fiction more than many Cormac McCarthy wannabes tried to be but never succeeded.

[None Ofyourbusiness Loves Israel · Rating 2 out of 5]

A series of loosely connected vignettes that are probably essential for those who hold Brooklyn as central, important, or lovely. For those who don't have a reason to be nostalgic about gritty Brooklyn, this book is one long snoozer. The biggest crime here is the time wasted reading these miserable childhood memories that hold no universal appeal. An extra star given for the inventive storytelling technique. Too bad the story is so weak.

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 3 out of 5]

In his most ambitious novel since the stylistic bloat of Chronic City, Lethem explores past and present Brooklyn through a mosaic of crime-adjacent tales, vignettes, self-referential squibs, and sardonic broadsides. A cranky cousin to the childhood mythologising of The Fortress of Solitude, the lore of the street kids and happenings on the block are explored in surgical if unmemorable detail, with Lethem struggling to fascinate me in the minutiae of this neighborhood as an outsider, narrowing the appeal of the novel to—sing it—the Brooklynites. Compared to Gilbert Sorrentino’s streetwise novels Steelwork or Crystal Vision, where the agglomeration of specifics sit within richly comedic recastings of the people, places, and patois of the period, Lethem’s knowing narrator is more concerned with glib reportage and an anthropological overview of the gentrification and race relations of the borough, which is interesting at the time of reading, but no individual story or thread particularly lingered in the mind upon the book’s conclusion, the canvas being too broad to fully immerse this reader in anything less than the superficial.

[Jackie · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the first ever ARC that I am giving a DNF title to, and it's killing me. I made it to 24%, and quite honestly, it's just not a book for me.

The characters don't have names, the stories fling out like someone feeding chickens, and the formatting and chaos is like nails on a chalkboard to my organized and methodical brain.

If you are a person that loves to talk about how much you love New York, if you grew up in NY, if you have a super NY fetish, if you like to talk to a guy that waxes philosophical and never gets to the damn point, I'm sure you'll love this. But I am not that human.

Thank you NetGalley and Harper Audio for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

[Nate D · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd somewhat checked out of keeping up with new Lethem after Chronic City (which was fine, but I'd been feeling somewhat diminishing returns ever since the most inventive early sci-fi work and Motherless Brooklyn), and had fairly low expectations for what he'd be up to another decade later. Was he attempting to replay his Brooklyn noir hit? But it's about Dean Street, Boerum Hill, so would this be more of the nostalgia of Fortress of Solitude? But no, this takes the material off in a fresh direction, as a kind of docufiction essay on culture clash and integration in Brooklyn in the 70s, through a pointilist selection of vignettes and commentaries. There are various low-grade "crimes" mentioned, but the real topic, and real crime here, is gentrification. I'm not sure that Lethem has a whole specifically new to say about that subject, but he's careful not to let anyone off the hook and polyphonic tangle of observations and case studies is fascinatingly messy. And weirdly gripping reading. Despite the self-reflexivity and claims to forgo specifics for universals, it's still very much paced as a novel, and its cloud of references begin to interconnect and ignite as it builds to a few unexpected conclusions.

Incidentally, the book is composed of 124 numbered sections. On a hunch I checked a map and yes, 124 Dean Street is between Smith and Hoyt, the very specific locus of study here. So what's the "locked out memory" lingering at 124?

[Kim Lockhart · Rating 4 out of 5]

You will probably either totally hate, or completely love, Lethem's experimental narrative framework. I loved it. It's a series of interconnected slices of time, telling the story of a single neighborhood in South Brooklyn. The characters and the culture are equally and endlessly fascinating. There is a great deal of interpretation left up to the reader. How should we feel about the expectations, the rules, the gentrification, the redlining, the stop and frisk crackdown, the revolving door of local businesses, the tremendous differences in advantages even in a small area, the dogged nonintervention of the bystander, private vs. public schools, casual racism, etc.

The story of this one block is immensely more complex than I had anticipated. The experience reminded me of how easily we can reduce communities we know little about into two-dimensional caricatures. Lethem's novel is an eye-opening revelation.

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 5 out of 5]

Authors so closely identified with the locales in their works are those that have had lifelong experience, and along with Pete Hamill and Paul Auster, Jonathan Lethem is the personification of Brooklyn. He knows the streets, the stories, most notably, the people, and here I'd like to think he delves into meta to display his personal history. These characters breathe from early days through the rough times and weathering the withering of gentrification. Watching their row houses become targets of developers, changing their neighborhood forever. Speaking in distinctive local style, they portray Brooklyn as only true natives could.

[Geonn Cannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vaguely annoyed. I mocked this book when it came out, based on its generic-as-hell title and seemingly vague summary. But I finally decided to see what it was actually like, and... damn it. It's really good. Dark, sad, funny, all those things. A meta book where the narrator addresses the reader, writer, and himself. And even worse, the title not only makes sense, it's the perfect title for what the book is. It's about Brooklyn. It focuses heavily on crime. And it's a novel. Why complicate things? It will be a favorite of the year and I'll just have to deal with that. ;)

[Oscar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pues si eres de Brooklyn...igual lo valoras algo. Pero vamos...más lejos no puede quedar el tema. Y en caso de que quieres llevártelo a tú barrio...pues tampoco. Es verdad que mola como escribe, casi parece que lo veas todo con un dron. Y añadiendo la perspectiva temporal a los personajes y al barrio. Pero ni por esas. Muy insulso.
Y de criminal...lo que yo te diga.
Un muermo básicamente.

[Kyle Wendy Skultety (gimmethatbook.com) · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF on page 51. Slow, dull vignettes, characters with no names, and no real closure. I have other books I’d rather be reading.

[Kanako Okiron · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is very much not a crime novel, and as someone that isn’t the biggest fan of crime novels I 👏🏻ate👏🏻 this 👏🏻one 👏🏻UP. Certainly a lot of mysteries to unpack here, you just gotta find them 🫢 Deresiewicz is right—Lethem is very much on the highbrow.

[Daniel Ford · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars, rounded down. Came together for me at the end a bit and the structure is very interesting/thought-provoking, but the story just didn't grip me and I had a really hard time gaining traction with the constantly shifting focus of the narrative.

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

Henry Miller, patron saint of Brooklyn, though mentioned several times by the nameless narrator, the Brooklyn experienced between the seventies and nineties during one of several cultural transformations on the cusp of gentrification, is nothing like the Brooklyn of Miller’s boyhood. Social activists and former hippies, failing to bring about the Age of Aquarius, holding on to their values of hope, disappeared into the middle-class, buying up brownstones in Brooklyn. This is the story of their children, primarily their sons, though a few daughters are present. The struggles of their parents, what little they believed they had won, were lost on their sons.

Ethnic and racial gang violence took a break and within the hiatus, the territorial of ethnicity—the Italian boys ruled their neighborhoods and the black boys had the projects—the old boundaries were intact. Until the reformers and idealists moved in. They pushed their clueless sons, lacking in racial and ethnic identities, referred to by the narrator as white boys, outdoors into the streets.

In his meditations on Kierkegaard, John Updike paraphrased the great Dane’s existential terror in the face of Jehovah this way: sometimes one’s terror is so intense it takes immense courage to make it to the front door just to pick up the milk. Of course, Updike was writing of a time when milkmen delivered milk house to house. But if terror could be summoned to get to the front door, imagine what it took for these white boys to go beyond the sill and down the stoop into the streets. Lethem’s white boys, and that’s how he identifies them, white boys, throughout the story remain nameless in their stony enclave of whiteness surrounded by black boys, needing the guidance of the exceptional black boy to guide them around Italian neighborhoods. Black boys, like the white boys, remain nameless.

Thanks to Richard Wright, who wrote a two book autobiography, one of them entitled Black Boy, black boy was once a commonplace descriptive in American speak. Critics pointed out Wright’s autobiography as sociological, a critique that could be hurled at Lethem’s white boy book. Lethem, borrowing techniques from non-fiction, breaks a cardinal rule of fiction writing, by telling instead of showing. Not to say authors before him haven’t crossed into the other territory. Norman Mailer, raised in Brooklyn, is credited for founding the literary school known as faction, the use of literary techniques in writing non-fiction. And for either show or tell, who better than Herman Melville who chose both, either and or, for his thoughts on whiteness.

Out the door, off the stoop, into the streets, for safe passage, tribute is demanded. Known to the white boys as mugger money. Their parents have told them that some people aren’t as well off as they are, so they provide their sons with mugger money, a daily ritual that becomes known as the dance, which even the black boys follow the moves in a pattern with what appears to be reluctance.

Lethem’s book feels nothing like fiction as his narrator searches like a hapless detective to find something, a style or a draft in search of a fictional genre, call it a crime if you will, something, anything, for rhyme or reason, that happened, the what and the why. Parts read like a rough draft or a sketch for some future project. Maybe with distance, the kind of distance that comes with age, seen from another neighborhood, from statistical reports, documentaries, or a different book of fiction—try a book by Dos Passos, Roth, Gorki or Gogol—will lend some sort of understanding to the overall picture. Or take the word of the digressive story by the narrator. Not to say the narrator hasn’t worked the other angles too but he didn’t get far.

With this one, Lethem, with audacity and brilliance, proves to be highly transgressive and fearless.

[Marcia · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a very unusual book. Written in very short vignettes, in language almost poetic, Jonathan Lethem has created a love story for Brooklyn. Addressing five decades of life in New York’s largest borough, Lethem looks lovingly and critically at gentrification, race relations, impinging cultures, poverty , affluence, crime, families, and daily life with all its triumphs and failures. Although each chapter is discrete, the interconnectedness of people and places is woven throughout. . No person unfamiliar with life in Brooklyn would be able to write so passionately. Vivid descriptive language makes the streets and inhabitants come alive on the pages of this incredible book. Four shining stars for an unforgettable story.
My thanks to NetGalley and publisher Harper Collins for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Joanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

The scattered construction required lots of concentration to read. The individual vignettes rang true. But it just petered out to a pretty unsatisfactory ending.

[Gabriel Congdon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel like Lethem reread some Calvino and thought, Why don't I just write a Calvino book?

He's back baby!

[Carey Calvert · Rating 5 out of 5]

I probably committed a crime by not reading Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn, and The Fortress of Solitude, first. To at least hear their autobiographical coming of age recitations of a changing neighborhood. Although Lethem has written twelve other novels, it appears he is not finished with his beloved Brooklyn, although perhaps every city deserves a book like Brooklyn Crime Novel.

I’ll pin that crime next to the others committed in this love letter to the borough – “Manhattan keeps on making it, Brooklyn keeps on taking it.”

As though there’s more to tell.

There’s no linear cord in Brooklyn Crime Novel, rather 124 vignettes composed of choked off voices and staccato utterances that leave the reader gasping for air or remembering. But there’s no room for the “rememberers.”

At least no longer in Brooklyn.

“You gentrified gentrification.”

Look it up.

Brooklyn Crime Novel takes place in the “bad old days,” the ‘70s and ‘80s but Lethem doesn’t dwell there too long. We can meet Milt the Vigilante in 1975 and go back, back to the Brooklyn House of Detention, born 1956.

No matter where you go, there you are.

“Steer your feet to another block, steer your mind around the monolith of despair in your midst.”

You want it straight?

“Brooklyn Crime Novel is a sweeping story of community, crime, and gentrification, tracing more than fifty years of life in one Brooklyn neighborhood.”

But that’s boring and this book is never boring. Stay with me.

Lethem would rather invite you to the dance.

Empty your pockets or keep your money in your socks.

“The promise of violence lies everywhere, a currency itself.”

Because you Will get robbed.

The crime is always in the before and after. This is what the better crime novels know.

“Some things, like a gentrification, or a trauma, can’t be so simply placed in time.”

Brooklyn Crime Novel isn’t about what nobody knows or what everybody knows.

It’s about what a small number of people remember, even if they avert their eyes when passing on the sidewalk.

“It’s about the knowledge that is locked up inside their bodies and how it wishes and doesn’t wish to come out.”

I want Lethem to visit again.

“Yeah, it’s a pity you turned into yourself, too.”

[Book Club of One · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sense of place is at the center of Jonathan Lethem's Brooklyn Crime Novel, but that place changes through time as we see Brooklyn's Dean Street through a series of vignettes unstuck in time. The recurrent focus is that stated in the title Brooklyn crimes, both petty and serious, and specifically the crime of gentrification.

Across six chapters and 124 sections, Lethem dips in and out of different people's lives or describes different locations with some narrator tangents told in the voice of both "we" and "I" anywhere from the 1930s to the 2010s. We see many of the denizens of Boerum Hill's Dean Street, mostly children of the 1970s. This is the time period when Brooklyn become more of an attractive living space and many white families move in to restore or renovate brownstones in mainly Black neighborhoods.

A lot of the crimes that takes place are results of the tensions between peoples, poor versus better off, neighborhood versus neighborhood, racially motivated crime. Most frequently discussed is "the dance" when white children have their pocket money stolen through the threat of force. Lessons are learned, such as not bringing playthings out on the street where they might find a new owner by dint of timing and swift feet. Sometimes the crimes are told with a farcical eye other times they emphasize loss or an escalation.

Characters are revisited, sometimes throughout their lives other times they are mentioned as a neighborhood fixture and then used as a shared landmark. Most of them are male children concerned with their own youth, their secretive home lives and their street lives never shared with parents. One child is "C" a Black child who befriends those of any race, often serving as their entry point to city life. There is "the screamer" a young woman who shouts out the window (one section is a list of some of the things she's screamed). Many of the vignettes are about pairs, two boys who play lots of board games together, a mixed race gay couple discovering their feelings, and others. But this is really the only way we get to know the characters, not by name, but by nickname provided by either the narrator, peers or their actions.

It is by no means a traditional novel, but instead is almost a palimpsest of a neighborhood. A reflection on the bits that survive alongside the gaps only fill-able by memories. It embraces the joys of playing in a fire hydrant's flow on a hot summer day or the awkwardness of finding and making friends to the challenges of transitioning from childhood things to the possibilities of sex, drugs and violence of adulthood.

I received a free digital version of this eBook via NetGalley thanks to the publisher.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

What was it like to grow up on the mean streets of Brooklyn in the 70's? This work of autofiction by Jonathan Lethem is an appealing and nostalgic look backward to that time and place. If the novel has any structure to speak of, it tends to follow a group of kids from their pre-teen years when racial differences were not apparent into their pre-teen times, characterized by "the dance" and the emergence of racial and sexual awareness. The book finishes with a nostalgic look backward by the characters as adults with special emphasis on the gentrification craze and what was lost by so-called progress.

Lethem's writing is a little like jazz. The narrative tends to jump around a lot but is never far from humor and irony. One is unsure who the narrator is or what to make of the short vignettes other than as ways to provide the reader with a general feel for things. He succeeds at capturing the humanity of his characters, even the hoodlums, but one would have to look elsewhere for the kind of coherent plot evident in other coming-of-age novels set in rough neighborhoods (e.g., Douglas Stuart's Glasgow).

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Jonathan Lethem’s work, and this book is very good. I was expecting another Motherless Brooklyn from the title alone, but I was pleasantly surprised when it wasn’t. The title is misleading but the story inside is an excellent view of Brooklyn and its inhabitants of Dean Street. The author goes back and forth between time and mostly nameless characters to incorporate a compelling story. Outside of the characters, the book reveals incredible observations of the neighborhood and the culture within.

I met the author years ago at a book signing and he was fantastic to his readers, so I’ll always be eager to read his work.

The book does not come out until later this year but thanks to @harpercollins allowing me to get an advance copy through @netgalley.
.
#bookstagram #books #brooklyn #novel #fiction #readingisfundamental #BrooklynCrimeNovel #NetGalley #jonathanlethem #harpercollins #advancecopyreader

[cycads and ferns · Rating 3 out of 5]

Police just an epiphenomenon of a city that’s written off this whole zone…This writing off frees the white boys to write cops off in turn….The cops drive off….
Most, but not all, of the white kids can summon, when needed, the slightest deference.
Not one of the Black kids can summon, when needed, white skin.
So, do the Black boys of Dean Street carry a different sense? If so, it is a thing maintained, during collective street play, in silence within their bodies.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

My wife asked me if this was “meta” or just pretentious, but of course, there’s no reason it can’t be both. A scattered narrative about gentrification, violence, and the desire for close male kinship (among other things), this book is a wonder of style and structure. But while it offers memorable characters and arresting prose, it also dances around its subject matter in a way that becomes increasingly tedious.

[Elizabeth Chorney-Booth · Rating 1 out of 5]

Reading this felt like a punishment. I know what he was trying to do but it was utterly unenjoyable to read.

[Marc Nash · Rating 5 out of 5]

Video review https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsE4t...

[Davi Kladakis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this.

[Lauren Oertel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This highly unique form for a novel took some time to sink into, but once I did, the rhythm clicked. The short chapters cover a variety of historical insights, scenarios, and commentary specific to Brooklyn, NY. It could be considered a "setting sketch," in a way. Some of the topics didn't hold my attention as much, but there were a few moments that made me laugh out loud, including the line, "the unbearable whiteness of their being." The explanation of "blockbusters" provided a startling and important learning moment. While this wasn't a 100% match for my taste, I think the author was effective in what he aimed for, and the book's description is accurate to what readers will find inside.

[Jim Steele · Rating 3 out of 5]

An odd book. The setting is the star: 1970’s Brooklyn, the place where Lethem grew up. The streets and all the scenes are lovingly described, and so well drawn they surround you as you read. You might even see these streets in your dreams.

The characters, though none are given real names (only descriptors like the Screamer, Millionaire’s Son, and Younger Brother), certainly walked these streets. Lethem knew them. They are black, white, brown, and everything in between. They come from families who are rich, poor, and middle class in about the socioeconomic mix one would expect in this place at this time.

But this book doesn’t feel like an autobiography; Lethem has taken liberties with the streets, the characters, and the events. Everything is drawn to work out as he has planned, though certainly not in any “happily ever after” since. Some of his characters win. Some lose. Most move on, both scarred and shaped by the streets of Brooklyn.

There is a lot of crime in this book, but not the drug running, murder, blood, and violence kind. These are “little” crimes, the two dollars stolen here, the shoplifting at the corner market there, the minor property destruction down the street. Crimes are constantly occurring and recurring. It seems inevitable. There is even an often-repeated scene where parents give their children lunch money to hide in their sock and additional money for their pockets, which is for the kids who will steal from them as they walk to school. Armed with the “stealing” money, these kids are later seen standing beside the busy streets while a thug steals the money from their pockets. At times, the whole game seems totally depressing, yet Lethem tells about his neighborhood as though he misses it desperately.

Lethem wants us to see that Brooklyn has suffered a big crime. As time passes, the apartment buildings where some of his friends have lived are replaced by new buildings. Instead of the quirky characteristics his friends lived with, the new buildings house bright, new, apartments with all the modern conveniences, all of which work. Everyone sees this as progress, but Lethem mourns it as loss.

So, is gentrification the crime of the Brooklyn Crime Novel? Is it that developers tore down old buildings and built new ones the old residents could never afford? Is it that poor neighborhoods have become dangerous ghettos? Is it that in some areas, “stealing money” wouldn’t protect anyone from the thugs roaming the streets?

Or is the crime simply that time has passed, and Lethem no longer feels at home in his childhood neighborhood?

I have always enjoyed Lethem’s work. He has written about many settings, and he does a respectable job describing each. His stories include all sorts of plots. But this one is from the heart. Brooklyn is his place.

Early in the book, Lethem asks “Anyone still reading at this point?” If you do read it, you won’t be swept up in a plot that all but slings you to the finish. You won’t cry for the characters as they woo and are wooed. You won’t find mystery and suspense. But you will find a love story to a real place, a place, unless you grew up in Brooklyn, you know little about. It isn’t a place I would have wanted to grow up in, nor would I have wanted to raise children there. But it certainly feels real. And it has shaped those who have experienced it.

Read this one and read Lethem. He isn’t a five-star writer, but he is certainly one worthy of reading.