Motherless Brooklyn

By: Jonathan Lethem

Narrated by: Geoffrey Cantor

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM WARNER BROS. STARRING BRUCE WILLIS, EDWARD NORTON, AND WILLEM DAFOE

From America's most inventive novelist, Jonathan Lethem, comes this compelling and compulsive riff on the classic detective novel.

Lionel Essrog is Brooklyn's very own Human Freakshow, an orphan whose Tourettic impulses drive him to bark, count, and rip apart 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, the charismatic King of Brooklyn, would be unimaginable. When Frank is fatally stabbed, Lionel's world is suddenly turned upside-down, 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. A compulsively involving a and totally captivating homage to the classic detective tale.

Top notch audiobook: novel and performance both A+

Thrilling chandleresque detective story, except the hardboiled narrator is a sensitive Brooklyn misfit with Tourette's.

Reading performance is really good.

I wish there were a sequel!

This is my first Lethem novel. I’m happy to see he has written many more. I hope I will find characters as engaging as Lionel, with narrators as brilliant as Cantor. But for now, I’m going to listen to Motherless Brooklyn again!

Good detective story.

Wasn't so sure be at first, but it gradually lured me in. Thanks, Bailey! Hah!

It was nothing like the movie

I should be cautious of movies that are "based" on books. The book was great, the movie was great - they were just totally different!! The only connection was that the main character was autistic. If a book is on the best seller list, why don't they follow the story in the book????

overall, a winner

Great prose, a compelling listen, enjoyable characters, great and relatable relatio ships. Felt the actual detecting was a bit underbaked, but maybe that's not the point. Overall very enjoyable.