New Releases by Jonathan Lethem

A definitive collection of new and selected stories by a master of the form. "Comparisons might be drawn to writers ranging from Jorge Luis Borges and Haruki Murakami to Margaret Atwood and J. D. Salinger. All of Lethem''s stories are enlivened by his wit and provocative wordplay" (Chicago Tribune). This dazzling, genre-defying collection from Jonathan Lethem features seven major stories published since his last collection, along with his best work spanning more than three decades. A major new story, "The Red Sun School of Thoughts," never published elsewhere, follows a teenaged boy coming to terms with figures of authority and power--those both in his own biological family and in the family he creates for himself. Elsewhere we meet "Super Goat Man," a down-at-heels bohemian superhero; "The Porn Critic," whose accidental expertise wrecks his own romantic aspirations; and "Sleepy People," who pose interpersonal conundrums without ever rousing from their slumber. Fluidly moving between realism and the surreal, the absurd and the mundane, A Different Kind of Tension is a container bursting with life and death, couples in trouble, talking animals, technologies on the fritz. Through it all are people longing to be seen and to connect; to thrive, love, and be forgiven. "This is the joy of reading Jonathan Lethem: you never know what you''re going to get" (Financial Times).

In honor of the 25th anniversary of Motherless Brooklyn—a hardcover omnibus edition of two of the most acclaimed novels by one of America’s most inventive novelists Motherless Brooklyn, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, is a compulsively readable riff on the classic noir detective novel. Lionel Essrog is an orphan whose Tourette’s symptoms drive him to rip apart language in startling and evocative ways. Charismatic Brooklyn mobster Frank Minna serves as a father figure to Lionel and three of his fellow veterans of the St. Vincent’s Home for Boys, employing them in his limo service and detective agency. But when Frank is fatally stabbed, Lionel’s world is turned topsy-turvy, and he sets out to untangle the case while trying to keep the words straight in his head. The Fortress of Solitude is the story of two motherless boys, Dylan Ebdus and Mingus Rude, growing up as neighbors in 1970s Brooklyn. Because Dylan is white and Mingus is Black, their friendship is not simple. Neither is their neighborhood, where the entertainments range from muggings to joyous games of stoopball, and where the smallest decisions—what music you listen to, whether to speak to the kid seated next to you, whether to give up your lunch money—are laden with potential disaster. Through the knitting and unraveling of the boys’ friendship, Jonathan Lethem weaves a rich and emotionally gripping story that encompasses race and class, superheroes, gentrification, funk, hip-hop, graffiti, incarceration, loyalty, and memory. Everyman''s Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket. Contemporary Classics include an introduction, a select bibliography, and a chronology of the author''s life and times.

A rapturous, ravenous celebration of visual art and storytelling from one of our most innovative writers and critical minds. Many know Jonathan Lethem as one of our most celebrated and eclectic writers, whose iconic novels--Motherless Brooklyn, The Fortress of Solitude, Chronic City, among many others--play with genres and storytelling modes like a DJ mixing music. But Lethem grew up in his father''s studio, went to art school, and, in his own words, "made hundreds if not thousands of drawings, collages, paintings, hand-drawn comics, and even two animated shorts" before diverting, at nineteen, to prose fiction. The surreal and form-defying panoply of his stories, essays, and novels celebrates - and mourns - this forsaken world of the visual and plastic arts. That leap, between the cellophane ephemerality of language and the brick-like tangibility of visual art, which operates as a sublimated wellspring for Lethem''s writing, is the subject of this book. Cellophane Bricks gathers a lifetime of Lethem''s art-writing, along with stunning, full-color images from the author''s own collection and elsewhere. Here we tour Lethem''s fictions in response to (and in exchange for) artworks by his friends; his meditations on comics and graffiti art; his collaborations with artists and interventions into visual culture, and his portrait of the museum that was and continues to be his home, untethered from geography. More than just a compilation, Cellophane Bricks comprises a kind of stealth memoir of Jonathan Lethem''s parallel life in visual culture - a ravishing assemblage that makes the perfect gift for story lovers of all kinds, and an essential, singular brick to add to your own collection.

Named a Best Book of the Year by: Boston Globe * New Yorker * NPR * PopMatters From the bestselling and award-winning author of The Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn comes a sweeping story of community, crime, and gentrification, tracing more than fifty years of life in one Brooklyn neighborhood. “A blistering book. A love story. Social commentary. History. Protest novel. And mystery joins the whole together: is the crime ''time''? Or the almighty dollar? I got a great laugh from it too. Every city deserves a book like this.” — Colum McCann, author of Apeirogon and Let the Great World Spin On the streets of 1970s Brooklyn, a daily ritual goes down: the dance. Money is exchanged, belongings surrendered, power asserted. The promise of violence lies everywhere, a currency itself. For these children, Black, brown, and white, the street is a stage in shadow. And in the wings hide the other players: parents; cops; renovators; landlords; those who write the headlines, the histories, and the laws; those who award this neighborhood its name. The rules appear obvious at first. But in memory’s prism, criminals and victims may seem to trade places. The voices of the past may seem to rise and gather as if in harmony, then make war with one another. A street may seem to crack open and reveal what lies behind its glimmering facade. None who lived through it are ever permitted to forget. Written with kaleidoscopic verve and delirious wit, Brooklyn Crime Novel is a breathtaking tour de force by a writer at the top of his powers. Jonathan Lethem, “one of America’s greatest storytellers” (Washington Post), has crafted an epic interrogation of how we fashion stories to contain the uncontainable: our remorse at the world we’ve made.

Having stormed mainstream literature from the outskirts, Lethem has won a readership both wide and deep, all of whom appreciate his literary excellence, his mordant but compassionate humor, and the cultish attentiveness of his SF origins. He has earned the right to tread anywhere, and his many admirers are ready to follow. This collection compiles his intensely personal takes on the most interesting and deplorable topics in post-postmodern America. From original new fiction to incites on popular culture, cult and canonical authors, and problem performers. The "Furry-Girl School of American Fiction" is a personal true adventure, as Lethem tries (with the help of a seeming expert) to elbow his way into literary respectability. "The Narrowing Valley" is a brand-new fictional journey into an ominous new unmapped realm. In an intimate encounter with a literary legend, Calvino''s Italy and Lethem''s Brooklyn meet cute. Stanislaw Lem''s Poland and Snowden''s Exile both explore courage, art, and the search for truth, with wildly different results. A bibliography is also provided as well as our usual Outspoken Interview.

The American Civil Liberties Union partners with award-winning authors Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman in this “forceful, beautifully written” (Associated Press) collection that brings together many of our greatest living writers, each contributing an original piece inspired by a historic ACLU case. On January 19, 1920, a small group of idealists and visionaries, including Helen Keller, Jane Addams, Roger Baldwin, and Crystal Eastman, founded the American Civil Liberties Union. A century after its creation, the ACLU remains the nation’s premier defender of the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. In collaboration with the ACLU, authors Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman have curated an anthology of essays “full of struggle, emotion, fear, resilience, hope, and triumph” (Los Angeles Review of Books) about landmark cases in the organization’s one-hundred-year history. Fight of the Century takes you inside the trials and the stories that have shaped modern life. Some of the most prominent cases that the ACLU has been involved in—Brown v. Board of Education, Roe v. Wade, Miranda v. Arizona—need little introduction. Others you may never even have heard of, yet their outcomes quietly defined the world we live in now. Familiar or little-known, each case springs to vivid life in the hands of the acclaimed writers who dive into the history, narrate their personal experiences, and debate the questions at the heart of each issue. Hector Tobar introduces us to Ernesto Miranda, the felon whose wrongful conviction inspired the now-iconic Miranda rights—which the police would later read to the man suspected of killing him. Yaa Gyasi confronts the legacy of Brown v. Board of Education, in which the ACLU submitted a friend of- the-court brief questioning why a nation that has sent men to the moon still has public schools so unequal that they may as well be on different planets. True to the ACLU’s spirit of principled dissent, Scott Turow offers a blistering critique of the ACLU’s stance on campaign finance. These powerful stories, along with essays from Neil Gaiman, Meg Wolitzer, Salman Rushdie, Ann Patchett, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Louise Erdrich, George Saunders, and many more, remind us that the issues the ACLU has engaged over the past one hundred years remain as vital as ever today, and that we can never take our liberties for granted. Chabon and Waldman are donating their advance to the ACLU and the contributors are forgoing payment.

From the award-winning author of The Feral Detective and Motherless Brooklyn comes an utterly original post-collapse yarn about two siblings, the man that came between them, and a nuclear-powered super car. The Arrest isn’t post-apocalypse. It isn’t a dystopia. It isn’t a utopia. It’s just what happens when much of what we take for granted—cars, guns, computers, and airplanes, for starters—quits working. . . . Before the Arrest, Sandy Duplessis had a reasonably good life as a screenwriter in L.A. An old college friend and writing partner, the charismatic and malicious Peter Todbaum, had become one of the most powerful men in Hollywood. That didn’t hurt. Now, post-Arrest, nothing is what it was. Sandy, who calls himself Journeyman, has landed in rural Maine. There he assists the butcher and delivers the food grown by his sister, Maddy, at her organic farm. But then Todbaum shows up in an extraordinary vehicle: a retrofitted tunnel-digger powered by a nuclear reactor. Todbaum has spent the Arrest smashing his way across a fragmented and phantasmagorical United States, trailing enmities all the way. Plopping back into the siblings’ life with his usual odious panache, his motives are entirely unclear. Can it be that Todbaum wants to produce one more extravaganza? Whatever he’s up to, it may fall to Journeyman to stop him. Written with unrepentant joy and shot through with just the right amount of contemporary dread, The Arrest is speculative fiction at its absolute finest.

El libro en que se basa la película dirigida por Edward Norton. Novela ganadora del Premio del National Critics Circle. Una original y brillante novela policíaca por uno de los autores más aclamados de su generación. «Tengo el síndrome de Tourette». Las palabras salen atropellándose, incontrolables, y las manos no pueden evitar tocar impulsiva y compulsivamente todo lo que tengan cerca. Es el sino de Lionel Essrog, criado en un orfanato y que, junto con sus tres amigos de la infancia, trabaja para un mafiosillo local, Frank Minna, en una agencia ilegal de detectives. El asesinato de Frank le obligará a sumergirse en la trama, compleja y llena de sombras, de relaciones, amenazas y favores que conforman el Brooklyn que él creía conocer tan bien y donde nadie es lo que parece. Huérfanos de Brooklyn supera con creces lo que podríamos considerar una novela negra, subvierte el género y le confiere nuevos matices hasta lograr un texto sumamente original. Esta novela pertenece al #FondoDeEditor de Literatura Random House «Huérfanos de Brooklyn, con su protagonista inolvidable, el detective afectado por el síndrome de Tourette, convirtió a Jonathan Lethem en un autor de referencia. Con este homenaje a las novelas clásicas del género policial ganó el premio Nacional de la Crítica en los Estados Unidos.».- Claudio López Lamadrid ENGLISH DESCRIPTION Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. Now a movie directed by Edward Norton. A compelling and complusively readable riff on the classic detective novel from America''s most inventive novelist. Brooklyn''s very own self-appointed Human Freakshow, Lionel Essrog is an orphan whose Tourettic impulses drive him to bark, count, and rip apart our language in startling and original ways. Together with three veterans of the St. Vincent''s Home for Boys, he works for small-time mobster Frank Minna''s limo service cum detective agency. Life without Frank Minna, the charismatic King of Brooklyn, would be unimaginable, so who cares if the tasks he sets them are, well, not exactly legal. But when Frank is fatally stabbed, one of Lionel''s colleagues lands in jail, the other two vie for his position, and the victim''s widow skips town. Lionel''s world is suddenly topsy-turvy, and this outcast who has trouble even conversing attempts to untangle the threads of the case while trying to keep the words straight in his head. Motherless Brooklyn is a brilliantly original, captivating homage to the classic detective novel by one of the most acclaimed writers of his generation. A New York Times Notable Book.

Viver na cabeça de Lionel Essrog não é fácil. Ele sofre da síndrome de Tourette, não controla as palavras. Quando se enerva saem-lhe frases sem sentido, palavrões, berros. Ou então toca repetidamente nas pessoas, conhecidas ou não. Órfão desde pequeno, viveu num lar para crianças abandonadas, até ao dia em que um gangster de Brooklyn, Frank Minna, o foi buscar – e a mais três rapazes. Cresceram juntos, a fazer biscates, sempre à margem da lei. Lionel, o freak do grupo, não se queixa. Vê no gangster o pai que nunca teve, é aceite por ele, desde que cumpra as ordens. Vive uma existência discreta, ordenada, que cai por terra com estrondo no dia em que Frank é esfaqueado. Lionel, que até a contar anedotas se baralha, tem agora um mistério para resolver e poucas pistas. Numa Brooklyn povoada de máfias italianas e japonesas, navega perdido, empurrado por uma mente que teima em falhar e palavras que não lhe obedecem. Escrito com uma energia maníaca por um dos mais inventivos escritores americanos da atualidade, Órfãos de Brooklyn é uma tour de force no domínio da linguagem. Em Lionel, Jonathan Lethem encontrou a personagem perfeita para se libertar de constrangimentos estilísticos, jogar com as palavras, procurar o caos. E que lhe permitiu reinventar um género, neste caso o romance hard-boiled, e torná-lo ainda mais sedutor. Desconcertante e comovente, Órfãos de Brooklyn recebeu no ano da sua publicação o mais prestigiado prémio literário dos EUA (NBCA) e, no ano seguinte, o mais importante prémio de literatura policial (Gold Dagger). E cimentou a reputação de um autor que, como Margaret Atwood ou Michael Chabon, é especialista em subverter e recriar géneros literários.

Phoebe Siegler incontra per la prima volta Charles Heist, il Detective selvaggio, in un ufficio cupo e trasandato, in mezzo a una distesa di roulotte all’estrema periferia di Los Angeles. La donna vuole ingaggiarlo per la ricerca di Arabella, la figlia di una sua amica, scomparsa da tre mesi: i pochissimi indizi portano alla California, a una qualche comunità strampalata e a Leonard Cohen, di cui la ragazza era una fan sfegatata. Heist, un solitario di poche parole che tiene nel cassetto della scrivania un opossum come animale domestico, conquista subito l’esuberante, sarcastica e logorroica Phoebe. L’improbabile coppia inizia così un viaggio tra i vagabondi che abitano nel deserto californiano per scoprire che Arabella è in pericolo e che solo il Detective selvaggio, per ragioni misteriose, può tirarla fuori da guai. L’avventura di Phoebe nel deserto si prospettava bizzarra sin dall’inizio, ma di certo nessuno poteva immaginare quanto sarebbe diventata pericolosa... Dopo l’indimenticabile Brooklyn senza madre, Jonathan Lethem ritorna al romanzo poliziesco, restituendoci gli stessi, formidabili ingredienti: giochi di parole magistrali, personaggi vividi e intensi, e soprattutto il suo straordinario, velocissimo, senso dell’umorismo. “Un romanzo incredibile, che trabocca di verve e acume, marchio di fabbrica di Jonathan Lethem.” Colson Whitehead “Uno dei più brillanti scrittori americani di sempre.” The Washington Post “Un maestro nello scrivere polizieschi che sconvolgono il genere, dando vita a eccentrici protagonisti.” The Huffington Post “Un libro irriverente e incredibilmente spiritoso. Come al solito, Lethem scrive di un’America anticonformista, grottesca e spietata con sapienza e ironia straordinarie.” Dana Spiotta

Die »Festung der Einsamkeit« ist ein großer und bewegender Roman über die Kraft der Freundschaft und das Erwachsen werden im Großstadtdschungel New Yorks. Die New York Times kürte das Buch bei Erscheinen zum »Besten Roman des Jahres«. Anfang der siebziger Jahre ziehen die ersten weißen Hippiefamilien ins Zentrum Brooklyns, das zu der Zeit überwiegend von Schwarzen und Puerto-Ricanern bewohnt wird. Dylan, der schüchterne Sohn des Malers Abraham Ebdus und dessen Frau Rachel sieht sich mit dem Umzug der Familie in eine bedrohliche Welt versetzt. Jede Zuneigung muss er sich erkämpfen wie das Stück Asphalt beim Spielen auf der Straße. Dennoch versucht seine Mutter ihn mit aller Macht in dem Viertel, in dem sie selbst aufwuchs, zu integrieren. Als sie eines Tages verschwindet und sich der Vater in die abstrakte Welt seiner Malerei flüchtet, ist der achtjährige Dylan auf sich allein gestellt. Beschützt von seinem gleichaltrigen schwarzen Freund Mingus Rude, den selbstbewussten Sohn eines früher berühmten Jazzmusikers aus der Nachbarschaft, und begleitet von einem geheimnisvollen Ring, begibt er sich auf die Suche nach seiner Identität. »Ein Jahrhundertroman!« Tagesspiegel

Después de Los Jardines de la Disidencia, vuelve el mejor Lethem con Anatomía de un jugador. El autor de Huérfanos de Brooklyn y La fortaleza de la soledad indaga sobre el azar y la identidad a través de la historia de un jugador de backgammon que cree haber perdido sus dones telepáticos a causa de un tumor. Alexander Bruno ha hecho del azar su profesión. Con el estuche de backgammon y la funda del esmoquin a cuestas, recorre Berlín hacia la lujosa residencia de herr Köhler, donde jugará la partida que pague las deudas acumuladas después de una racha de mala suerte en Singapur. Pero los dados no están de su parte y el juego se va torciendo. Está convencido de que los dones telepáticos que hasta ahora le habían convertido en ganador le están fallando. Quizá se deba a la aparición de una incómoda mancha en su campo de visión que le nubla la vista y a causa de la cual deberá viajar a California aceptando la ayuda económicaque parece ofrecerle desinteresadamente un viejo amigo de la infancia. Al igual que su visión, su vida se difumina por momentos. Jonathan Lethem regresa con una novela inquietante y extraordinaria que indaga en cómo las buenas cartas en la partida de la vida pueden volverse contra uno hasta hacerlo desparecer. El profundo retrato psicológico de los protagonistas de esta nueva historia confirma a Lethem como uno de los escritores más brillantes y originales de su generación. La crítica ha dicho: «Lethem es ambicioso como Mailer, divertido como Philip Roth y mordaz como Bob Dylan.» Los Angeles Times «Uno de los autores norteamericanos más brillantes.» The Washington Post «En su nueva novela, Lethem parece estar canalizando (y, como de costumbre, transformando) tanto a Thomas Pynchon como a Ian Fleming [...] en pocas palabras, se trata simplemente de un día más enLethemland, un lugar tan extraño y extraordinario como cualquier otro imaginado por L. FrankBaum.» Chicago Tribune «Maravillosamente extraña.» Vogue «Una novela reflexiva y de primer nivel que, además, resulta ser adictiva.» The New York Times Book Review «Anatomía de un jugador llevará a más de un lector a rebuscar en el fondo de su armario (o en la tienda de juguetes de su barrio) en busca de un tablero de backgammon [...] hipnótica, enrevesada, atrevida.» San Francisco Chronicle «Una combinación natural de gamberradas cómicas y tragedia delirante [...]. Lethem presenta una novela impactante, elegante, incansablemente entretenida.» Star Tribune

''A nimble and uncanny performance, brimming with Lethem''s trademark verve and wit'' Colson Whitehead, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad Phoebe Siegler first meets Charles Heist in a shabby trailer on the eastern edge of Los Angeles. She''s looking for her friend''s missing daughter, Arabella, and hires Heist - a laconic loner who keeps his pet opossum in a desk drawer - to help. The unlikely pair navigate the enclaves of desert-dwelling vagabonds and find that Arabella is in serious trouble - caught in the middle of a violent standoff that only Heist, mysteriously, can end. Phoebe''s trip to the desert was always going to be strange, but it was never supposed to be dangerous... Jonathan Lethem''s first detective novel since Motherless Brooklyn, The Feral Detective is a singular achievement by one of our greatest writers.

The author of Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude returns with a devilishly entertaining novel about an international backgammon hustler who thinks he''s psychic. Too bad about the tumor in his face. Alexander Bruno travels the world playing high stakes backgammon and hunting for amateur “whales” who think they can challenge him. Lately he’s had a run of bad luck, not helped by the blot that has emerged in his field of vision, which forces him to look at the board sideways. As the blot grows larger, his game gets worse, until, at an opulent mansion in Berlin, he passes out in the middle of a match and receives an alarming diagnosis. Out of money and out of friends, he turns to the only person who can help (and the last person he wants to see): a high-rolling former childhood acquaintance who agrees to pay for Bruno’s experimental surgery in Berkeley. But Berkeley is the place where Bruno discovered his psychic gift and where he vowed never to return. There, forced to confront patchouli flashbacks and his uncertain future, he must ask himself: Is he playing the game, or is the game playing him?

Affascinante, sempre elegantissimo, Bruno Alexander viaggia per il mondo arricchendosi a spese degli sventurati dilettanti che pensano di poter sfidare il suo ineguagliabile talento di giocatore di backgammon. Spinto dal suo manager, pallido e vampiresco, Bruno arriva a Berlino dopo una serie di partite a Singapore, dove è accaduto qualcosa che lo ha sorpreso. Forse a causa dell’incontro con un suo volgare amico d’infanzia e la sua bollente fidanzata, o forse per una misteriosa macchia comparsa improvvisamente che gli impedisce di vedere con precisione il gioco, il suo infallibile intuito, capace di leggere nella mente del suo sfidante, sembra essersi inceppato. A Berlino la situazione non migliora affatto. Bruno continua a perdere al gioco; il flirt con una donna bionda, troppo bionda, non va a finire bene, la macchia cresce e la diagnosi medica è impietosa. Bruno è costretto allora a tornare in California, dopo una vita passata all’estero, per affrontare un intervento chirurgico: la macchia, dopo avergli danneggiato la vista, rischia ora di ucciderlo. L’unico che può operarlo è un chirurgo hippie, che ha messo a punto una tecnica sperimentale e che lo terrà sotto i ferri per nove ore ascoltando Jimi Hendrix a tutto volume. Con questa operazione Bruno potrebbe riacquistare tutto il suo potere al gioco, ma a che prezzo? Sarà sempre lui? E l’America che gli si mostrerà davanti sarà la medesima che aveva lasciato e che ricordava? E una domanda inizierà a rincorrerlo: forse lui, giocatore d’azzardo, è stato “giocato” dalla vita e dai suoi modesti interpreti?

From the award-winning author of Motherless Brooklyn and The Ecstasy of Influence comes a new collection of essays that celebrates a life spent in books More Alive and Less Lonely collects over a decade of Jonathan Lethem’s finest writing on writing, with new and previously unpublished material, including: impassioned appreciations of forgotten writers and overlooked books, razor-sharp critical essays, and personal accounts of his most extraordinary literary encounters and discoveries. Only Lethem, with his love of cult favorites and the canon alike, can write with equal insight into classic writers like Charles Dickens and Herman Melville, modern masters like Lorrie Moore and Thomas Pynchon, graphic novelist Chester Brown, and science fiction outlier Philip K. Dick. Sharing his infectious love for books of all kinds, More Alive and Less Lonely is a bracing voyage of literary discovery and an essential addition to every booklover’s shelf.

Uno dei romanzi più noti di Lethem, narra la storia di Dylan e Mingus, due ragazzi, vicini di casa che abitano a Brooklyn. Dylan è bianco, Mingus è nero: la loro amicizia non è sempre facile. Un racconto che si snoda dagli anni settanta ai novanta, all''interno della "fortezza", un isolato abitato da una maggioranza di famiglie nere, dove serpeggia la paura del ritorno dei bianchi. La vita nell''America degli anni settanta è fatta di conflitti razziali e politici che si possono accendere anche a partire da scelte molto piccole: quali canzoni ascoltare e quali amici frequentare. Con gli anni novanta l''atmosfera si fa più distaccata, e le persone sono sempre più avvolte nell''indifferenza e nell''isolamento.

The Blot is an extended conversation between postmodern novelist Jonathan Lethem and cult theorist Laurence A. Rickels.

‘Dissidentparken’ er den amerikanske forfatter Jonathan Lethems beretning om modkulturen i USA gennem det sidste trekvarte århundrede. Den er bygget op som en familiesaga over tre generationer. Rose Angrush er polsk jøde og kommunist og emigrerer som ung til USA i 1930’erne. Rose bliver kaldt Sunnyside Gardens røde dronning og er en karismatisk furie, som terroriserer omgivelserne med sine kompromisløse holdninger og sit skarpe intellekt. Hendes lige så begavede og viljestærke datter Miriam flygter fra sin mors indflydelse og bliver en del af den gryende modkultur i Greenwich Village, hvor hun danner par med folkesangeren Tommy Gogan. Sammen får de sønnen Sergius, som de forlader, mens han er spæd, for at slutte sig til sandinisterne i Nicaragua. Sergius forsøger som voksen at nå til en forståelse af sin familiemæssige baggrund. Undervejs i sin søgen stifter han bekendtskab med occupy-bevægelsen og finder måske derved en tråd i sit liv, som forbinder ham med sin familie. Så ambitiøs som Mailer, så morsom som Philip Roth og så skarp som Bob Dylan … ‘Dissidentu00adparken’ viser Lethems fulde beherskelse af sit talent som romanforfatter, sådan som han ubesværet glider fra historiske perioder til indre verdener … vidende, velskrevet, vis, empatisk, hjertegribende og næsten blottet for nostalgi. Los Angeles Times

Una original y brillante novela policíaca por uno de los autores más aclamados de su generación. «Tengo el síndrome de Tourette». Las palabras salen atropellándose, incontrolables, y las manos no pueden evitar tocar impulsiva y compulsivamente todo lo que tengan cerca. Es el sino de Lionel Essrog, criado en un orfanato y que, junto con sus tres amigos de la infancia, trabaja para un mafiosillo local, Frank Minna, en una agencia ilegal de detectives. El asesinato de Frank le obligará a sumergirse en la trama, compleja y llena de sombras, de relaciones, amenazas y favores que conforman el Brooklyn que él creía conocer tan bien y donde nadie es lo que parece. Huérfanos de Brooklyn supera con creces lo que podríamos considerar una novela negra, subvierte el género y le confiere nuevos matices hasta lograr un texto sumamente original. Esta novela pertenece al #FondoDeEditor de Literatura Random House « Huérfanos de Brooklyn, con su protagonista inolvidable, el detective afectado por el síndrome de Tourette, convirtió a Jonathan Lethem en un autor de referencia. Con este homenaje a las novelasclásicas del género policial ganó el premio Nacional de la Crítica en los Estados Unidos.» Claudio López Lamadrid Reseñas: «En parte novela de detectives y en parte fantasía literaria, Huérfanos de Brooklyn compagina magistralmente una bella prosa y una trama absorbente.» The Wall Street Journal «Otro gran divertimento de Lethem, uno de los narradores contemporáneos más inspirado y que asume mayores riesgos. No se pierdan esta novela.» Kirkus Reviews «La mejor novela del año [1999]. Absolutamente original y hondamente conmovedora.» Esquire «Jonathan Lethem es una de las voces más originales entre los jóvenes escritores estadounidenses... Su imaginación es maravillosamente fértil.» Newsday «Un tour de force.» The Denver Post

The incomparable Jonathan Lethem returns with nine stories that demonstrate his mastery of the short form. Jonathan Lethem’s third collection of stories uncovers a father’s nervous breakdown at SeaWorld in “Pending Vegan”; a foundling child rescued from the woods during a blizzard in “Traveler Home”; a political prisoner in a hole in a Brooklyn street in “Procedure in Plain Air”; and a crumbling, haunted “blog” on a seaside cliff in “The Dreaming Jaw, The Salivating Ear.” Each of these locates itself in Lethem-land, which can be discovered only by visiting. As in his celebrated novels, Lethem finds the uncanny lurking in the mundane, the irrational self-defeat seeping through our upstanding pursuits, and the tragic undertow of the absurd world(s) in which we live. Devoted fans of Lethem will recognize familiar themes: the anxiety of influence taken to reductio ad absurdum in “The King of Sentences”; a hapless, horny outsider summoning bravado in “The Porn Critic”; characters from forgotten comics stranded on a desert island in “Their Back Pages.” As always in Lethem, humor and poignancy work in harmony, humans strive desperately for connection, words find themselves misaligned to deeds, and the sentences are glorious.

From Jonathan Lethem’s classic collection, Men and Cartoons, a haunting, playful story about dress-up, superheroes, Mafia, love and treachery. “I first met the kid known as the Vision at second base, during a kickball game in the P.S. 29 gymnasium,” the narrator, Joel, explains. Decades later the Vision returns to his old Brooklyn neighborhood, no longer a young boy who dresses up in superhero costumes but a confident adult. But at a party with several mysterious visitors the Vision reveals some secrets still lingering, as the partygoers turn from party games to the uneasy weight of truth. This is an exemplary story from a modern master—poignant, witty, and entirely original. An eBook short.

Una historia sobre el idealismo; cómo se modula, se desvanece y se transforma en el seno de una familia a lo largo de los años. Los Jardines de la Disidencia sigue la vida de tres generaciones de neoyorquinos que no responden al prototipo del patriota estadounidense, puesto que son comunistas, hippies y activistas políticos. Rose Zimmer es conocida en Queens como la Reina Roja de Sunnyside por ser una comunista reaccionaria que importuna a familia, vecinos y camaradas políticos con su carácter feroz y su radical intransigencia. Su hija Miriam, que comparte el carácter obstinado de su madre, huye de su sofocante influencia para abrazar los albores de la contracultura de la Era de Acuario en Greenwich Village. La vida de estas dos mujeres es el eje central de un desfile de personajes imperfectos e idealistas que luchanpor alcanzar el sueño utópico de una América donde el radicalismo es recibido con desconcierto, hostilidad o indiferencia. A través de sus vidas vemos cómo un movimiento revolucionario sucede al anterior: el auge comunista de los años treinta, la caza de brujas de la era McCarthy, el movimiento en defensa de los derechos civiles, las andrajosas comunas de los setenta y el conflicto sandinista hasta llegar al actual Ocupa Wall Street. La crítica ha dicho... «Lethem es tan ambicioso como Mailer, tan divertido como Philip Roth y tan agudo como Bob Dylan [...]. En Los Jardines de la Disidencia se muestra en plena posesión de sus facultades como novelista.» Los Angeles Times «Una novela emocionalmente compleja y estilísticamente sofisticada, de uno de los escritores más brillantes de Estados Unidos: Jonathan Lethem.» The Washington Post «Los que comparan al señor Lethem con otros Jonathans, como ocurre con Franzen, estarían más en lo cierto si invocaran a Philip Roth.» The New York Times «Los entusiastas de Lethem encontrarán en esta su mejor novela. Muy recomendable.» Library Journal «El planteamiento de esta novela es tan divertido que se lee casi como un homenaje a Philip Roth.» Kirkus Reviews «Una verdadera novela de ideas.» GQ.com «El gran libro de Jonathan Lethem.» The A.V. Club

Conrad Metcalf è un investigatore con un sacco di problemi: per cominciare, nella sala d’attesa del suo studio ci sono un coniglio e un canguro dal grilletto facile. Oakland, un prossimo futuro: gli animali evoluti fanno ormai parte della società, la polizia controlla i cittadini attraverso i loro livelli di karma e farmaci da capogiro come Forgettol e Acceptol sono di gran moda. Metcalf sta pedinando Celeste, la moglie di un medico facoltoso, e forse se ne sta anche innamorando. Quando il dottore viene assassinato, l’investigatore si ritrova sotto il fuoco incrociato dei detective governativi, pronti a ibernarlo per sempre, e dei gangster che si riuniscono nel retro del bar “La musa incostante”.Mescolando fantascienza e noir in una trama avvincente, il primo romanzo di Jonathan Lethem è uno sguardo ironico, divertente e satirico su tutto ciò che può riservarci il futuro.

Taken from a recently discovered manuscript published posthumously, this story provides a snapshot of San Francisco and Portland in the early 1950s and 1960s as it follows four writers living, loving and writing in the early days of the Beat scene. 20,000 first printing.