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The Fortress of Solitude

A Novel

By Jonathan Lethem

(32)

| Hardcover | 9780385500692

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Book Description

This is the story of two boys, Dylan Ebdus and Mingus Rude. They are friends and neighbors, but because Dylan is white and Mingus is black, their friendship is not simple. This is the story of their Brooklyn neighborhood, which is almost exclusively black despite the first whispers of something thContinue

This is the story of two boys, Dylan Ebdus and Mingus Rude. They are friends and neighbors, but because Dylan is white and Mingus is black, their friendship is not simple. This is the story of their Brooklyn neighborhood, which is almost exclusively black despite the first whispers of something that will become known as "gentrification."

This is the story of 1970s America, a time when the most simple human decisions—what music you listen to, whether to speak to the kid in the seat next to you, whether to give up your lunch money—are laden with potential political, social and racial disaster. This is the story of 1990s America, when no one cared anymore.

This is the story of punk, that easy white rebellion, and crack, that monstrous plague. This is the story of the loneliness of the avant-garde artist and the exuberance of the graffiti artist.

This is the story of what would happen if two teenaged boys obsessed with comic book heroes actually had superpowers: They would screw up their lives.

This is the story of joyous afternoons of stickball and dreaded years of schoolyard extortion. This is the story of belonging to a society that doesn't accept you. This is the story of prison and of college, of Brooklyn and Berkeley, of soul and rap, of murder and redemption.

This is the story Jonathan Lethem was born to tell. This is THE FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE.

Critics

  • Heroic failure

    The Fortress of Solitude Jonathan Lethem Faber £7.99, pp511 Jonathan Lethem made his name with updated takes on genre fiction - sci-fi in Amnesia Moon, hard-boiled crime in Motherless Brooklyn - but The Fortress of Solitude was hailed on publication ... (read full critics)

    guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

  • Brutal but beautiful Brooklyn

    There is currently a vogue for the all-encompassing, minutiaecrunching, self-regarding, state- of-the-changed-nation American novel. All too many of these are prone to solidification and gigantism, careless of content and reader-fatigue, and prone to ... (read full critics)

    spectator published on Fri, 17 Sep 2010

5 Reviews

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  • Friendship between a black and a white boy is not easy in the 1970's New-York.

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    jelabino said on Aug 1, 2011 | Add your feedback

  • Great book, interesting historical description of New York between the Seventies and the Eighties, beautiful account of what it meant growing up in a big city in those years (drugs, graffitis...). Loved the superhero parts, as well.

    Is this helpful?

    Mariangelafanz said on Jul 16, 2007 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

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9780385500692 Hardcover $26.00 -- The Book Depository
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