Product Description

From the funked-up, messed-up Brookyn of the 1970s to the present day, this stunning novel spans thirty years in the life of two best friends, Dylan and Mingus, their families and an entire neighbourhood. From their stories comes the history of soul music, of graffiti art, of comic books, of experimental film and 'rock writing'. With a cast of more than a hundred characters and more than fifty speaking parts, this is a touching and intimate novel on an epic scale.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #37680 in Books
• Published on: 2005-01-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Review
"'Jonathan Lethem's novel is the best New York City novel of the past 10 or 15 years... Probably the one American novel this year you absolutely must read.' Rick Moody; 'One of those rare books that felt as though it had to be written.' Nick Hornby; 'A phenomenal book, with the pace of Scorsese or Spike Lee.' Uncut"

Rick Moody, Daily Telegraph
Probably the one American novel this year you absolutely must read.

Kirkus Reviews
‘Terrifically entertaining: a fine, rich thoughtful novel from one of our best writers.’

Customer Reviews

An embarrassment of riches.
In one of the most ambitious novels in recent memory, Jonathan Lethem recreates the sights, sounds, textures, and tensions of one block of Dean Street in Brooklyn from the 1970's to the present. Dylan Ebdus, the white child of artistic, hippie parents, and his best friend, Mingus Rude, the son of a cocaine-addicted black singer, face school and neighborhood dangers together. Their world of spaldeens, skully, stickball, wallball, and stoopball exists side by side with the bullying, shakedowns, and outright theft which Dylan must face every day on walks to his school, "a cage for growing, nothing else." Together they collect comic books about superheroes, who, unlike them, have the power to conquer injustice and escape from all threats.

Though they admire Spiderman, they do not like Superman, whom they consider a "flattened reality," an ineffective presence living in his "Fortress of Solitude," much like Dylan's artist father living in his studio. When a homeless man in the neighborhood, jumps from a three-story building and injures himself in an attempt to fly like Superman, Dylan begins to think about Superman as a real, not comic book character, actually emulating him in real life. Descriptions of the neighborhood, the attempts at gentrification, the inadequate public school system, the drug scene, the racial conflicts, and eventually even the prison system all add depth and color to the novel, and Lethem expands this scope even further by presenting a detailed view of pop culture. His unique images are a constant source of surprise and delight.

The novel is a huge and imaginative recreation of growing up in the city in the '70's, but it is not seamless. Dylan's early life is traumatic and is drawn very realistically, so the reader is startled when, at the relatively mature age of thirteen, Dylan becomes obsessed with Superman and wants to emulate him, and when the author segues into the magic realism of flight shortly thereafter, the reader is unprepared for the contrast with the earlier naturalism of the novel. Dylan's lack of curiosity about what happens to Mingus after a horrifying incident at age fourteen leaves the reader wondering about the depth of his feelings, and occasionally the mini-essays, which give color and life to the neighborhood, act as a brake on the action. Dylan as an adult is not very interesting, and Mingus becomes almost a footnote. Still the novel adds a new dimension to Lethem's rapidly growing portfolio of outstanding novels and enhances his reputation as one of America's most exciting young novelists. Mary Whipple

Lethem is always worth the time investment
"The Fortress of Solitude" is a difficult book for me to review. The story being told by Lethem is so broad, and at the same time so simple that capturing it in a couple of short paragraphs seems like folly to attempt. Yet, this novel is so good that an attempt is warranted. "The Fortress of Solitude" is one of the few novels that I would honestly compare to Don DeLillo's "Underworld", and Lethem pulls this off in theme, setting, and in the simple power that is conveyed by the story.

Most of the novel takes place in 1970's Brooklyn and the story centers on Dylan Ebdus, a young white boy living in a neighborhood of Brooklyn that is predominately black. Later, when he is in high school it is said that he is one of only three white boys in the entire school. Yes, race plays a factor in this book. Dylan is a smaller kid, weak, but he makes a friend in Mingus Rude, a black kid who is new to the neighborhood. Unlike Dylan, Mingus immediately fits in and finds a place in the neighborhood. Nobody messes with him. Mingus belongs. Dylan and Mingus have one friendship when they are alone and at each other's homes, and another type when they are on the street. This works for Dylan. He takes what he can get and he knows that his friendship is the true friendship.

Lethem gives us the rhythm of the street and the race relations in that Brooklyn neighborhood. It is painful for Dylan, but he is able to get by. What comes next almost seems like a gimmick, but Lethem did not push it down our throat so it felt believable. Mingus and Dylan are big into comic books and think and talk about superheroes and the powers they have. Dylan meets a man who was trying unsuccessfully to fly. At first this seems like an event unconnected to anything else, but it turns out to have a deeper connection to the story. Sometime later Dylan and Mingus are part of their own two person tagging crew (graffiti) and they tag a homless man who they think is already dead. At some point later he turns out to be alive and Dylan acquires a ring from the man. This ring has "super" powers. Dylan and Mingus attempt to be superheroes, but nothing goes quite according to plan and the ring is put to the side for months and years at a time.

As much as the title alludes to Superman comics and that there is a strong comic book theme running through the novel, not to mention the ring, this is a very down to earth novel that just feels real. Lethem has fashioned the world of the Brooklyn neighborhood and of Dylan's childhood absolutely perfectly. Lethem is a talented author who just keeps getting better and better.

-Joe Sherry

A mighty but flawed dirge
I’m in two minds about this book. On the one hand I’m conflicted about the novel’s style and structure, yet on the other hand I’m in absolute awe of its enormous scope and passion. Fortress of Solitude was just far too over embellished with detail and Lethem’s style just seemed out of control. Lethem really needed a good editor to ferret out some of the more long-winded passages, rein his style in, and condense the novel to a more sensible length. Much of Fortress of Solitude is satisfactory for its insight into the sights and sounds of Brooklyn in the 1970’s, yet its also frustrating in its intensity. Lethem writes as though he is obsessed with some “Joycean” like intensity, as though he can’t wait to splurge and gorge any thought he ever had onto the printed page. He has a kind of bold, confrontational style, but his work reads like a clunky, turgid school report from his youth.

The real star of this book is not Dylan Ebdus or Mingus Rude but the world that they inhabit. Dean Street in the Seventies is a world teetering in the edge – drugs are rife, the yuppies are moving in, gang life proliferates, and a sense of economic decline permeates the area. To is credit, Lethem’s descriptions of Dean Street are good – the oil stained body shops and forlorn graffitied warehouses, the sprays of broken glass on the side walks, the Puerto Ricans, the images of the dilapidated brownstones, and the liquor stores. This, after all, is the Seventies and Lethem, to his credit infuses his narrative with references to pop culture – Logan’s Run, Star Trek, disco hits, cocaine, and the grooviest pop groups. Lethem periodically intersperses the narrative with pop songs of the period, as the story gradually moves forward into the 80’s and 90’s.

The main problem that I found with this novel is that Lethem never really allows us access to the main characters’ inner thoughts. We have some wonderful descriptions of time and place – but I never got the sense that the author was privileging us to what Mingus, Dylan and Arthur were actually thinking, and this is also true of many of the secondary characters. The reader is constantly the observer on in this novel, always on the outside and at all times looking in. On the positive side, Lethem has a good ear for recreating natural conversation and portrays rather adroitly the particular black inflections of the period. Bu generally though, I found this novel to be a big disappointment, an over the top, shoddy, and slapdash mess. Fortress of Solitude is all over the place, which is a pity, because Lethem has much passion and zeal as a writer.

Michael