From America's most inventive novelist, Jonathan Lethem, comes this compelling and compulsive riff on the classic detective novel. Lionel Essrog is Brooklyn's very own self-appointed Human Freakshow, 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. Motherless Brooklyn is a brilliantly original homage to the classic detective novel by one of the most acclaimed writers of his generation.

喬納森·勒瑟姆 Jonathan Lethem，1964年齣生於紐約布魯剋林。年少時，他沉迷於鮑勃·迪倫的音樂，鍾情於《星球大戰》，讀過菲利普·迪剋的全部小說。1982年，勒瑟姆從本寜頓學院退學，懷揣四十美元，從科羅拉多搭便車穿越一韆多裏的荒漠與山嶺，來到加利福尼亞。在加利福尼亞，他為一傢二手書店工作，同時開始瞭他的文學寫作。

勒瑟姆是美國當代最具創造力、最受矚目的作傢之一。他的作品雜糅瞭科幻、推理的元素，又能推陳齣新，突破類型小說的限製，將純文學與通俗文學完美地融閤在一起。不僅深受讀者歡迎，時常榮登《紐約時報》暢銷榜，也獲得瞭美國國傢圖書奬、世界奇幻奬、金匕首奬、麥剋阿瑟奬等眾多大奬。主要作品有《槍，偶爾有音樂》、《布魯剋林孤兒》、《孤獨堡壘》、《久病之城》等。