Celebrated Brooklyn novelist Jonathan Lethem
will read from his new novel, "The Fortress of Solitude"
(Doubleday, 2003) at 7:30 pm on Dec. 4 at Halcyon, 227 Smith
St. at Butler Street.
Boerum Hill figures prominently in Lethem’s novel about two neighboring
boys growing up, despite their single fathers’ unorthodox parenting
techniques, on the same block in Brooklyn in the 1970s. "Fortress"
has bowled over many a book lover, and many more Brooklyn-o-philes
(and comic book fans). The boys dabble in super powers, graffiti
and worse while they try to survive their not-yet-gentrified
’hood on their way to manhood.
This novel follows Lethem’s critically acclaimed novel "Motherless
Brooklyn" (Doubleday, 1999), which won the National Book
Critic’s Circle Award for fiction. In that equally unconventional
work, the noir-like story is told from the viewpoint of an orphaned
young man, Lionel Essrog, who has Tourettes syndrome.
Reading a Lethem book about Brooklyn is an eye-opening experience
indeed.
The reading event is free and open to the public. For more information,
call (718) 260-WAXY.
