Word: novels
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Lethem, whose previous novel Motherless Brooklyn was named the “Book of the Year” by Esquire, is very engaged in his characters. This was clearly evident at the reading; he eagerly mimicked the dull hulk of a schoolyard bully; he let the squeak of a scared submissive jump from his lips. Clad in tight jeans, a bright yellow shirt and Costello glasses, Lethem was as colorful as his characters themselves...
...Fortress of Solitude is filled with cultural references, a novel that wavers between an interesting cultural history and a forced inclusion of everything that comprised the 1970s. Even Bruce Lee is mentioned, seemingly for no other reason than a gratuitous name-drop...
Lethem, when he read this section aloud, even sang the song lyrics themselves, caught up in their humor. When Dylan becomes a rock critic later in the novel, he notes the ignorance of his childhood self: “Of course, the 35-year-old rock critic knew what the 13-year-old scrap of prey on the sidewalk outside Intermediate School 293 never did: Wild Cherry were a bunch of white guys...
...title of the novel is a reference to comic-book hero Superman’s isolated hideaway, and Lethem’s novel is rife with talk of comic books as well. “Marvel Comics had it right,” Lethem writes, “the world was all secret names, you only needed to uncover your...
Lethem, who was born and lives in Brooklyn, was asked how much of the novel is autobiographical. “There’s a lot of me in Dylan,” he said, though he added that “my autobiographical sentiment covers more of the book than Dylan.” He described some of the incidents in the book as “experiences I know about but never...