Motherless Brooklyn is a compulsively readable riff on the classic noir detective novel. Brooklyns selfappointed Human Freakshow Lionel Essrog is an orphan whose Tourettic impulses drive him to rip apart our language in startling and original ways. Together with three other veterans of the St. Vincents Home for Boys he works for smalltime mobster Frank Minnas limo service cum detective agency. But when Frank is fatally stabbed Lionels world is suddenly topsyturvy and he must untangle the threads of the case while trying to keep the words straight in his head.The Fortress of Solitude is the vividly told story of Dylan Ebdus growing up white and motherless in Brooklyn in the 1970s. In a neighbourhood where the entertainments include muggings and games of stoopball Dylan has one friend a black teenager also motherless named Mingus Rude. Through the knitting and unravelling of the boys friendship Lethem creates an overwhelmingly rich and emotionally gripping canvas of race and class superheroes gentrification funk hiphop graffiti tagging loyalty and memory.From the prizewinning author of Motherless Brooklyn The Fortress of Solitude is a daring riotous sweeping novel that spins the tale of two friends and their adventures in late 20thcentury America.