Reviews

Brooklyn Crime Novel is Jonathan Lethem’s sort-of-sequel to The Fortress of Solitude, his 2003 semi-autobiographical novel about growing up in the changing world of Brooklyn in the 1970s (Dean Street in Boerum Hill, specifically). Brooklyn Crime Novel returns to Dean Street, but not in any linear way. The title itself is misleading – not only because it’s not really a crime novel – the crimes here are multitudinous and petty - but it’s not really even a novel in the traditional sense. Told in short bursts that jump back and forth between at least a dozen different time periods (all spanning between 1960 – 2019),
While reading this book (and hearing him speak), you feel just how deep his feelings run for the neighborhood and its changing tides (his complex and contradictory view on gentrification, for example, given how he himself (as author and character) was one of the first white families to begin buying up real estate in the neighborhood). Brooklyn, to him, was a place people strove to escape, and has now become, confusingly, a place to be in its own right. Lethem, though he has not lived in Brooklyn for many years, joins the ranks of Paul Auster or Pete Hamill in his depiction of his home borough and his genius integration of the memoir with literary fiction. While I found it occasionally difficult to follow along with the jumpy narrative style, his writing was as beautiful as ever, and I hope he finds a way to return to Dean Street again and again in the future.

cfl97's review against another edition

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The writing was awful and the story didn’t go anywhere

shoba's review against another edition

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3.0

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.

jarthur's review against another edition

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adventurous reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

vlyon's review against another edition

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So boring and couldn’t find a thread through the book. It was like someone trying to describe dreams from their childhood and read you a journal at the same time

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