Lethem Revisits Brooklyn’s Past in ‘Brooklyn Crime⁢ Novel’

Jonathan Lethem,despite a diverse ⁢body of work spanning numerous locales,remains largely associated with his Brooklyn-centric novels such as⁢ Brooklyn without⁢ Mother and The Fortress of Solitude. These, along with The Gardens of Dissidents, established him as a chronicler—both elegiac and irreverent—of a chaotic, multi-ethnic Brooklyn increasingly lost ‍to gentrification.

Nostalgia and Change in Gowanus

The Fortress of solitude, a semi-autobiographical work, saw Lethem reconstruct his childhood neighborhood of Gowanus (later Boerum hill).⁣ He portrayed the daily life ⁣of the protagonist with a⁢ poignant melancholy, viewing the past as an irretrievable world. The Brooklyn ⁣depicted is noisy and neglected, unknowingly foreshadowing the gentrification spearheaded, in part, by the protagonist’s parents and their utopian ‍community ideals.

Replete with literary allusions—ranging from Ray Bradbury’s enchanting tone in Dandelion Wine (originally published ‍as People of Autumn) to the⁤ classic pairings of⁤ Jim and Huck in Adventures of⁤ Huckleberry Finn and Ishmael and ⁣Queequeg in Moby⁣ Dick—The Fortress of Solitude celebrates street culture. it ⁣captures the language, music, chatter,‍ and urban legends that permeate the neighborhood, illustrating the protagonists’⁢ daily negotiations as an intertwining of bodily⁢ rhythms and the⁢ city’s pulse.

‘Brooklyn Crime Novel‘: A New Investigation

Now, two decades later, Lethem ⁢returns⁢ to similar territory in brooklyn ⁤Crime Novel, recently published. The title itself subverts expectations, defying easy literary categorization. The work, ⁢while termed ⁤a novel, functions more as an exploration of brooklyn from the 1970s onward, focusing on it’s pervasive petty crime and the larger “crime” of gentrification.

Lethem, ⁢aiming to depict “topicality in its rawest form,” avoids excessive detail, even concerning his characters. He ‍describes them as “figures of ‍a hieroglyph” he is analyzing, presented through 124 vignettes arranged non-chronologically. Critical labels such as “Fitty Memoir,” “sociological investigation,”‍ or “epic of gentrification”‍ don’t⁢ fully capture the work’s essence. Lethem intends the book to represent “a sort of topicality from tabloid,” immersing readers in a‍ sequence of experiences and contexts radically different⁢ from present-day reality.

impersonal ‍Narration and Collective Experience

The novel lacks a central protagonist or episode. Rather, characters and themes intertwine and resurface throughout the investigation, which lethem conducts impersonally. He eschews both “pictorial effects” and the specialized lexicon of “forgotten street games,” attempting to avoid the “slime of nostalgia.”

The narrator of Brooklyn Crime Novel positions himself on the periphery, allowing the neighborhood to speak for itself with both bravado and sincerity: “Blacks, mules, whites, boys, girls. Those who remember and those who forget. They are part of this group. I love them too much to say more.”

Short chapters often indicate ⁤the ⁣year in which events occur, sometiems presenting multiple dates to suggest the persistence of certain elements‍ and the presence of liminal temporal spaces that ⁤transcend chronological duration. Characters are ⁣often nameless or known by‍ nicknames. The narrator, ⁤who leads the investigation, identifies himself as “a boy from Dean Street.” He rarely ⁣uses the first-person singular, opting‍ instead for a plural viewpoint that highlights collective rituals, humiliations, and defeats conveyed through‍ the language of bodies in space.

Crime as a Unifying Force

Crime—ranging from petty theft to kidnapping, aggression, gentrification, and real ⁤estate scams—unites the narratives, casting characters as both victims and⁤ perpetrators. A boy robbed in the street later shoplifts a book; a bully exacts revenge by stabbing his “nemesis.” The omnipresence of crime manifests⁤ in what Lethem calls “the dance”—the aggression of ‍white boys ⁣by their Black peers to steal⁤ money,⁣ toys, or bus ⁣passes. The narrator describes these as ritual transactions, metropolitan choreographies in which bodies establish a peculiar ⁢intimacy, often ⁢leading⁢ to role reversals. The attacker,Black,appropriates what belongs to the white boy,who,in ‍turn,experiences guilt for belonging to the world of “brownstoners”—those who renovate homes,displacing long-term tenants of color.

Many of the new residents had previously fought for the rights of African Americans who⁤ were now ⁤being displaced. These displaced residents, exiled to⁢ public housing, view the newcomers with contempt. The parents of children who⁣ endure daily attacks instruct them not ⁣to react, to justify, leaving⁢ them to navigate the streets alone, protected ⁤only by a Black boy who teaches them the fundamental moves in the “theater of the hard boiled.”

A ‘Backstage’ View and Metanarrative Crime

In ⁤some respects,Brooklyn Crime Novel functions as a powerful “backstage” view ⁣of The fortress of Solitude. However, here, Lethem discards sentimentality and “the rhetoric of memory,” presenting⁢ “things ⁣swallowed by the street” in their rawest form. His self-deprecating humor leads ⁣him to identify with a novelist performing “a Dickensian operation” on Brooklyn’s reality: “He agglomerated many ⁤different white kids in the profile ⁢of a single person…we were the legislators everywhere in its pages,and at⁢ the same time nowadays,” because he “grabbed all those magnificent puzzles.”

The ultimate crime, therefore, becomes metanarrative. Lethem suggests that his depiction of crimes ⁢serves as a “linguistic frame” upon which ‍”the sense of⁢ an immense loss, the junk of⁤ the past” is suspended.