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Jonathan Lethem is a contemporary American author of psychological detective stories. His prose is distinguished by the author’s recognizable humor, interesting multifaceted characters, and the fact that all his books are set in Brooklyn.
“Orphan Brooklyn” – the most famous novel by Jonathan Litem abroad, which, unlike his earlier works, has no fantastic component, only a detective story in the setting of the infinitely beloved writer of Brooklyn in the era before World War II. The book attracted attention with a successful 2019 adaptation with a brilliant cast, starring Bruce Willis, William Defoe and Edward Norton (in the title role), directed by Edward Norton. It was after the film’s release that several Russian-language publishers purchased the rights to Litem’s detective and published it.
About the author
The writer was born and raised in Brooklyn, and this distinctive, multicultural neighborhood is reflected again and again in his books – fantastic, ironic, detective – Jonathan Litham sees Brooklyn as different and introduces it to his readers around the world. A second popular theme in Litham’s novels is orphanhood: his own mother died when he was 13, and he has come a long way before he learned to cope with the loss. Usually in his books, orphanhood provokes the loss of memory, some sense or, as happened to the hero of Orphan Brooklyn, the appearance of nervous disorders.
Jonathan Leetham became famous in the United States as a fiction writer, his fantasy and fantasy stories in the 1980s and 1990s were published in The New Yorker, The New York Times and themed anthologies and were nominated many times for profile awards.
“Orphan Brooklyn” was a creative experiment for the author–here he abandoned fantasy altogether and focused on a detailed portrait of Brooklyn, thus reminding critics of James Joyce and his treatment of Dublin. The narrative is transported to the 1930s, and the detective plot is built around gangsters, bootleggers and jazz clubs.
“Orphan Brooklyn” plot.
The main character is an orphan raised on the streets of Brooklyn. No one knows if he would still be alive if not for a private detective who noticed the kid’s outstanding powers of observation and keen intellect and took him under his wing. The detective’s name was Frank Minne, he was a powerful man in Brooklyn, and his agency had, in addition to the protagonist, several other such former street children, whom he had taken off the street and trained in his business.
Read “Orphan Brooklyn” online, the story begins with Frank Minne being killed by unknown assailants. Protagonist Lionel Essrog (everyone calls him Brooklyn) decides by all means to find those who ordered the murder and avenge the death of the dearest person in his life. It will not be an easy investigation: the police do not intend to pursue the case, and even Lionel’s colleagues seem to agree to turn a blind eye to what happened, just not to start a war against the serious mafia.
