It's hard for me to believe that I've read over fifty books since I finished As She Climbed Across the Table. At the time, I wrote that I'd be willing to give Lethem another chance, and now I'm glad that I finally did so. Motherless Brooklyn is quite an improvement over Table.

In Brooklyn, Lethem spins a detective story of sorts, where the protagonist is a high-school dropout, an orphan with Tourette's syndrome. His name is Lionel Essrog, but his friends call him "freakshow", and he's been "adopted" by a small-time gangster named Frank Minna. When Minna is murdered during a job that goes badly, Lionel — fighting Tourettic tics and outbursts at every turn — attempts to find the killer and bring him to justice.

Although Motherless Brooklyn is at face value a detective novel, it's really more of a character study, and Lethem explicitly pokes fun at some of the detective-story cliches as he uses them. Lionel Essrog is an interesting character, and I found myself rooting for him despite the fact that I never really liked him. (Come to think of it, none of the characters in the novel are at all likeable.) Overall, I enjoyed Motherless Brooklyn, but I'm not in a hurry to read more Lethem. He's a capable and talented writer, but I haven't fallen in love with his writing.