Motherless Brooklyn

Description

From Amazon: Brooklyn's very own self-appointed Human Freakshow, Lionel Essrog is an orphan whose Tourettic impulses drive him to bark, count, and rip apart our language in startling and original ways. Together with three veterans of the St. Vincent's Home for Boys, he works for small-time mobster Frank Minna's limo service cum detective agency. Life without Frank Minna, the charismatic King of Brooklyn, would be unimaginable, so who cares if the tasks he sets them are, well, not exactly legal. But when Frank is fatally stabbed, one of Lionel's colleagues lands in jail, the other two vie for his position, and the victim's widow skips town. Lionel's world is suddenly topsy-turvy, and this outcast who has trouble even conversing attempts to untangle the threads of the case while trying to keep the words straight in his head.

Description

"St. Vincent's Home for Boys, Brooklyn, early 1970s. For Lionel Essrog, a.k.a. The Human Freakshow, a victim of Tourette's syndrome (an uncontrollable urge to shout out nonsense, touch every surface in reach, rearrange objects), Frank Minna is a savior. A local tough guy and fixer, Minna shows up to take Lionel and three of his fellow orphans on mysterious errands: They empty a store of stereos as the owner watches; destroy a small amusement park; visit old Italian men. The four grow up to be the Minna Men, a fly-by-night detective agency-cum-limo service, and their days and nights revolve around Frank, the prince of Brooklyn, who glides through life on street smarts, attitude, and secret knowledge. Then one dreadful night, Frank is knifed and thrown into a Dumpster, and Lionel must become a real detective."--BOOK JACKET. "As Lionel struggles to find Frank's killer - without letting his Tourette's get in the way - he's forced to delve into the complex, shadowy web of relationships, threats, and favors that make up the Brooklyn world he thought he knew so well. No one - not Frank, not Frank's bitter wife, Julia, not the other Minna Men - is who they seem. Not even The Human Freakshow."--BOOK JACKET.

Subjects

Genres

• Fiction.

Other Editions

• Motherless BrooklynDoubleday1999-01-01
• Motherless BrooklynDoubleday1999-01-01
• Motherless BrooklynFaber2000-01-01
• Motherless BrooklynVintage Books2000-01-01
• Motherless BrooklynFaber and Faber2000-01-01
• Motherless BrooklynThorndike Press2000-01-01