Lionel Essrog, the protagonist of Motherless Brooklyn, suffers from severe Tourette’s syndrome: a neurological disorder marked by repetitive, uncontrollable physical or vocal tics. Lionel also displays obsessive-compulsive tendencies: as he makes his way through the world, he feels compelled to tap his surroundings; to kiss and lick objects and people; and to engage in endless, riffing wordplay which is often obscene in nature. Lionel, an orphan, has been told all his life by those around him that he’s a “freak”—and he has come to believe that he truly is one. By creating a protagonist whose life is marked by otherness—Lionel is constantly reminded that he is different, other, and unusual—Lethem seeks to show how conformity and sameness are illusory. Through Lionel, Lethem argues that those who are different, disabled, or otherwise relegated to the fringes of society are actually those whose stories most profoundly reflect the core, essential struggle of the human experience: the desire to be recognized, known, and accepted as one is.
Throughout the novel, Lethem suggests that Lionel and everyone he encounters—even those individuals considered “normal” or neurotypical—experiences the same desire: to see themselves reflected in the world around them. Lethem uses Lionel’s repeated identification of “Tourettic” patterns and structures in the world around him in order to demonstrate Lionel’s desire to have his own internal psychological, physical, and emotional experiences reflected back at him. Lionel is devastated when his mentor and primary father figure, Frank Minna, dies early on in the novel. He becomes determined to solve the mystery of Frank’s death in an attempt to secure justice for Frank—the only person in Lionel’s life who “encouraged [him] to have a take on everything, and to spit it out.” Lionel observes that while Frank always seemed to think that Lionel’s tics and repetitions were jokes or even impressions, Frank still allowed Lionel to experience the feeling of being known and accepted for the first time in his life. “In this way,” Lionel recalls of his early relationship with Frank, “Minna licensed my speech, and speech, it turned out, liberated me from the overflowing disaster of my Tourettic self.” While growing up in an orphanage in Brooklyn, Lionel always felt different and othered. Only Frank Minna’s acceptance allowed Lionel to feel, for the first time, that he was not a “disaster,” as he’d been told for so long. Instead, in Minna’s company, Lionel begins to sense that his differences don’t necessitate his living on the fringes of society. Minna’s embrace of Lionel’s differences allows Lionel to perceive his own uniqueness in a new light. His differences don’t close him off from the world—instead, seeking out those differences in the world around him actually allows him to feel more connected to his surroundings.
As the novel progresses, Lionel continues to seek out things that seem to him to be “Tourettic” in order to feel more in touch with himself and less alone: the New York City subway (and New York City itself), the music of Prince, the behaviors of a gray kitten named Hen whom Lionel adopts for a short period of time, the career path of a detective, and even guilt. As Lionel points to the things around him which reflect his own inner experiences with Tourette’s—a “useless” and “inelegant” flow of utterances “contemptuous of perimeters [and] doomed to be mistaken or refused on delivery”—Lionel seeks to feel recognized and understood by the world in which he lives. Lionel draws parallels between the demanding, fast-moving, ever-shifting nature of detective work and the “free movement” of his own thoughts, voice, and body. He sees his compulsions and comforts reflected in the erratic behavior of Hen, a cat with whom he quickly bonds—but then he pushes away when his desire to inspire the same tics he observes in the cat results in Hen’s growing unease in Lionel’s apartment. Additionally, “the abruptness and compulsive precision [and] the sudden shrieks and silences” of Prince’s music provide a “balm” for Lionel’s brain, as seeing the patterns of his own thoughts laid out in sonic form in Prince’s most iconic songs makes Lionel feel less alone. As Lionel repeatedly seeks out parallels between his own intensely different experience of the world—and his resultant feelings of ostracization and loneliness—Lethem reveals the core human desire to see one’s experience reflected back to oneself. Lionel has been made to feel freakish, othered, and bizarre his entire life—yet as he grows older, he comes to see that in several core, fundamental ways, he is much the same as those around him. Lionel’s ability to begin seeing his journey reflected in the infrastructure and minutiae of the world which surrounds him speaks to Lethem’s assertion that difference, variation, and otherness actually form the world.
The word “normal” only appears once in the entirety of Motherless Brooklyn—yet the desire to understand what “normal” is and to be assured of one’s normality, runs like an undercurrent through the heads and hearts of nearly all of the characters within the novel. Ultimately, however, Lethem suggests that there is no true normalcy—not in terms of behavior, feeling, or experience. Difference and otherness, Lethem argues, is the foundation of society—not a threat against it or an anomaly within it.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Difference and Otherness ThemeTracker
Difference and Otherness Quotes in Motherless Brooklyn
Food really mellows me out.
I gritted my teeth while my brain went Guy walks into the ambulance ramp stabs you in the goddamn emergency gut says I need an immediate stab in the garbage in the goddamn walk-in ambulance says just a minute looks in the back says I think I’ve got a stab in the goddamn walk-in immediate ambuloaf ambulamp octoloaf oafulope.
“Oafyoulope!” I screamed, tears in my eyes.
'You probably ought to know, Lionel's a freak," said Tony, his voice vibrant with self-regard.
"Yeah, well, you're all freaks, if you don't mind me pointing it out,” said Minna "No parents—or am I mixed up?"
Silence.
"Finish your beer," said Minna tossing his can past us, into the back of the van.
And that was the end of our first job for Frank Minna.
With Minna's encouragement I freed myself to ape the rhythm of his overheard dialogues, his complaints and endearments, his for-the-sake-of arguments. And Minna loved my effect on his clients and associates, the way I'd unnerve them, disrupt some schmooze with an utterance, a head jerk, a husky "Eatmebailey!" I was his special effect, a running joke embodied.
"This is exciting for you, Ma? I got all of motherless Brooklyn up here for you. Merry Christmas."
Minna Men wear suits. Minna Men drive cars. Minna Men listen to tapped lines. Minna Men stand behind Minna hands in their pockets, looking menacing. Minna Men carry money. Minna Men collect money. Minna Men don't ask questions. Minna Men answer phones. Minna Men pick up packages. Minna Men are clean-shaven. Minna Men follow instructions. Minna Men try to be like Minna but Minna is dead.
Music had never made much of an impression on me until the day in 1986 when, sitting in the passenger seat of Minna's Cadillac, I first heard the single "Kiss" squirting its manic way out of the car radio. […] It so pulsed with Tourettic energies that I could surrender to its tormented, squeaky beat and let my syndrome live outside my brain for once, live in the air instead.
(in Tourette dreams you shed your tics)
(or your tics shed you)
(and you go with them, astonished to leave yourself behind)
"I've got Tourette's," I said.
"Yeah, well, threats don't work with me.”
"Tourette's," I said.
I can't own a cat because my behaviors drive them insane. I know because I tried. I had a cat, gray and slim, half the size of Kimmery's, named Hen for the chirping and cooing sounds she made… […] She enjoyed my attentions at first, my somewhat excessive fondling. […] But from the very first Hen was disconcerted by my head-jerks and utterances and especially by my barking. She'd tum her head to see what Id jumped at, to see what I was fishing for in the air with my hand. Hen recognized those behaviors—they were supposed to be hers. She never felt free to relax.
See me now, at one in the morning, stepping out of another cab in front of the Zendo, checking the street for cars that might have followed, […] moving with my hands in my jacket pockets clutching might-be-guns-for-all-they-know, collar up against the cold like Minna, unshaven like Minna now, too… […] That's who I was supposed to be, that black outline of a man in a coat, ready suspicious eyes above his collar, shoulders hunched, moving toward conflict. Here's who I was instead: that same coloring-book outline of a man, but crayoned by the hand of a […] child.
On second thought, there is a vaguely Tourettic aspect to the New York City subway, especially late at night-that dance of attention, of stray gazes, in which every rider must engage. And there's a lot of stuff you shouldn't touch in the subway, particularly in a certain order: this pole and then your lips, for instance. And the tunnel walls are layered, like those of my brain, with expulsive and incoherent language—
"I'm a detective, Kimmery."
“You keep saying that, but I don't know. I just can't really accept it.”
"Why not?"
"I guess I thought detectives were more, uh, subtle."
"Maybe you're thinking of detectives in movies or on television.” I was a fine one to be explaining this distinction. "On TV they're all the same. Real detectives are as unalike as fingerprints, or snowflakes."
It all happened at once. There were six of them, a vision to break your heart. I was almost glad Minna was gone so he'd never have to face it, how perfectly the six middle-aged Japanese men of Fujisaki filled the image the Minna Men had always strained toward but had never reached and never would reach… […] They were all we could never be no matter how Minna pushed us: absolutely a team, a unit, their presence collective like a floating island of charisma and force.
Is guilt a species of Tourette's? Maybe. It has a touchy quality, I think, a hint of sweaty fingers. Guilt wants to cover all the bases, be everywhere at once, reach into the past to tweak, neaten, and repair. Guilt like Tourettic utterance flows uselessly, inelegantly from one helpless human to another, contemptuous of perimeters, doomed to be mistaken or refused on delivery. Guilt, like Tourette's, tries again, learns nothing.
I needed her to see that we were the same, disappointed lovers of Frank Minna, abandoned children.
In detective stories things are always, always the detective casting his exhausted, caustic gaze over the corrupted permanence of everything and thrilling you with his sweetly savage generalizations. This or that runs deep or true to form, is invariable, exemplary. Oh sure. Seen it before will see it again. Trust me on this one. Assertions and generalizations are, of course, a version of Tourette's. A way of touching the world, handling it, covering it with confirming language.
That was me, Lionel. hurtling through those subterranean tunnels, visiting the labyrinth that runs under the world, which everyone pretends is not there. You can go back to pretending if you like. I know I will, though the Minna brothers are a part of me, deep in my grain, deeper than mere behavior, deeper even than regret, Frank because he gave me my life and Gerard because, though I hardly knew him, I took his away. I'll pretend I never rode that train, but I did.
