Oliver Twist Brooklyn

Set in the heart of Brooklyn.

Oliver Twist is a young motherless orphan in Brooklyn, NY who causes a major fuss when he asks the headmaster, Mr. Bumble, for some more gruel. As he takes to the street meeting new families he meets a young bunch of Brooklyn misfits, all without their mothers, and he enters a life of crime. But will he be able to get away from Bill Sykes in time?

Lethem again explores what it's like to be an orphan in Brooklyn.

"I'm pretty sure it was just Oliver Twist, right? But just set in Bushwick..."
          - Phoenix Sun

"This is definitely just Dickens' book but there must have been a global search and replace from England to Brooklyn. No, that's definitely what happened, because one time it said Engand... and I think Lethem's word processor just missed it..."
          - Baltimore Times

"Consider yourself... another masterpiece! Lethem does it again, turning the Oliver Twist genre on it's head!"
          - Chicago Tribune

Amnesiac Gardens

Set in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, Amnesiac Gardens takes another look at what it means to be a young man growing up without a mother in Brooklyn. Especially when you can't remember you don't have a mother and that you live in Brooklyn.

Reece Tyler is a young man with Amnesia. In fact, his amnesia is so bad that he is unable to remember that he grew up without a mother. He thus lives his life as if he had a mother and if he hadn't grown up in Carroll Gardens Brooklyn. But things all change when he meets a girl... the girl of his dreams...

By playing with the stereotypes and genres of a Lethem novel, Jonathan Lethem turns the Lethem novel on its head with the zany twist that this character can't remember he doesn't have a mother and is therefore no way affected by it. He also only vaguely remembers things about Brooklyn.

"A very un-Lethemy surprise from Lethem"
          - Seattle Times

"A brilliant page turner. Except not much happens..."
          - LA Times

"Brilliantly turns the Lethem genre on it's head."
          - Chicago Tribune

The Red Hook Menace

Set in Red Hook, Brooklyn this tale of horror and murder takes the classic grocery store thriller genre and turns it on its head.

Gabe Yipton is a tortured soul. As a young boy he grew up in the heart of Brooklyn, constantly being reminded that he did not fit in. He also didn't have a mother because she had died when he was young. Now, a grown man living in his lonely apartment in Red Hook, his tortured past seems to be rearing its head as his friends, and family (not mother) begin going missing. Could this killer or kidnapper be a friend of old, a Brooklyn stranger, or worse... himself.

Lethem does it again... telling a moving, fast-paced story with that extra twist to make it legit literature.

"Definitely a Lethem book."
          - NY Post

"Unmistakeably Lethem"
          - Philly Weekly

"A murder mystery like no other. Basically."
           - Chicago Tribune

Orphanage Brooklyn Times

In Orphanage Brooklyn Times Jonathan Lethem has crafted a masterpiece. Young Don Jackson has grown up without a mother and with a father who does not care. In his small apartment in deep Brooklyn Don seemingly has no family, no life, and no love. However when he meets a group of motherless youths in a Redhook abandoned Warehouse, Don and this group of children begin working on and distributing a new Newspaper, the "Orphanage Brooklyn Times," laid out and written as if it were a comic book. Orphanage Brooklyn Times takes off, but how will they deal with fame, their different backgrounds, and ultimately Brooklyn.

Orphanage Brooklyn Times is an exploration on friendship, being motherless, and being from Brooklyn.

"Like Newsies but much better and more well written and there's no music."
          - NY Times

"A page turning classic... almost exactly like newsies, but turned on it's head"
          - Washington Post

"It's like Jonathan Lethem wrote Newsies."
          - Chicago Tribune