by JonathanLethem (Author)
Lionel Essrog, a.k.a. the Human Freakshow, is a victim of Tourette's syndrome (an uncontrollable urge to shout out nonsense, touch every surface in reach, rearrange objects). Local tough guy Frank Minna hires the adolescent Lionel and three other orphans from St Vincent's Home for Boys and grooms them to become the Minna Men, a fly-by-night detective-agency-cum-limoservice. Then one terrible day Frank is murdered, and Lionel must become a real detective. With crackling dialogue, a dazzling evocation of place, and a plot which mimics Tourette's itself in its freshness and capacity to shock, Motherless Brooklyn is a bravura performance: funny, tense, touching, and extravagant.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 320
Edition: New Ed
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Published: 06 Nov 2000
ISBN 10: 0571203167
ISBN 13: 9780571203161
Prizes: Winner of Crime Writers' Association Macallan Gold Dagger Award 2000. Shortlisted for Macallan Gold Dagger for Fiction 2000.