MacArthur “genius grant” recipient and novelist Jonathan Lethem ignores the boundary between literary fiction and “lower” pop-culture or genre work, drawing inspiration from Raymond Chandler, Philip K. Dick, and comics. Lethem stayed mostly in science-fiction territory in early novels like Gun, With Occasional Music, and found wider success with 1999’s National Book Critic’s Circle Award-winning Motherless Brooklyn, about …
Originally published in The Rake’s “Broken Clock” roundup of short arts & entertainment reviews, September 26, 2003. Read the complete article on the original website. Most of Jonathan Lethem’s early writing career consisted of science fiction novels that leaned toward the Philip K. Dick side of the genre—experimental, unorthodox and pounding on the door of literary respectability. When …