Lionel Ess­rog is Brook­lyn’s very own self-appoint­ed Human Freak­show, an orphan whose Touret­tic impuls­es dri­ve him to bark, count, and rip apart our 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 Min­na, the charis­mat­ic King of Brook­lyn, would be unimag­in­able, so who cares if the tasks he sets them are, well, not exact­ly legal. But when Frank is fatal­ly stabbed, one of Lionel’s col­leagues lands in jail, the oth­er two vie for his posi­tion, and the vic­tim’s wid­ow skips town. Lionel’s world is sud­den­ly top­sy-turvy, 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. Moth­er­less Brook­lyn is a bril­liant­ly orig­i­nal homage to the clas­sic detec­tive nov­el by one of the most acclaimed writ­ers of his generation.

Relat­ed Content

• Dis­si­dent Gar­dens by Jonathan Lethem
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