"Motherless Brooklyn" by Jonathan Lethem

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Ignorant me always thought Tourette's was a condition that made the individual involuntarily spout out obscenities. This book educated me. Turns out that Tourette's is a tic, and the individual does feel the need to get rid of this tic verbally, but the ensuing exclamations are not necessarily obsceneties. They can be plays on the language.

Lethem created a great character here. Lionel Essrog, our protagonist, is an intelligent adult with Tourette's syndrome. So, because of his verbal tics and other compulsions, everyone, even those closest to him, think he's crazy and therefore stupid.

The book is touted as a detective story, though I found it less of a detective story than a homage to Brooklyn (duh. title.) and a fascinating insight into the mind of a Touretter. Essrog is one of four orphans taken under the tutelage of small-time mobster, Frank Minna. Essrog and his fellow orphans brand themselves as the Minna Men, working for Frank well into their adulthood. However, when Minna is killed for unknown reasons by an unknown man during Essrog's watch, Essrog decides to go on a personal crusade of finding Minna's killer. Meanwhile, the other Minna seem to be preoccupied with their own agenda, though one of them might know more than he lets on.

Lionel is totally a character that inspires compassion. Not because he has the tic, but because he seemed a lost soul trying to make sense of the mystery behind the only individual in his life who meant anything to him, regardless of how flawed that individual was. This is what I liked about the book. Because of Essrog's Tourette's, too, the book is replete with word plays and word associations. The language plays, though entertaining, lacked a bit of sharpness.

Read: 1/8/09

4/5 stars

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