Mystery and the Futility of Answers Theme Analysis

Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn is a novel-length parody of—and love letter to—the noir genre: a kind of detective novel marked by dark cynicism or even misanthropy. As Lethem creates a twisting, labyrinthine mystery and follows Lionel Essrog, the unlikely, Tourette’s-afflicted detective who seeks to solve it, he both highlights the ridiculous self-seriousness of noir and points to the larger failures of the entire mystery and detective genre. Ultimately, Lethem argues that the practical answers at the heart of a mystery are useless once uncovered and are therefore futile to pursue; when someone goes missing or is murdered, their memory cannot be brought back or served true justice by the empty pursuit of the facts of their death.

At the start of the novel, even as Lethem sets up a distinctly dark and brooding noir atmosphere, Lionel Essrog believes that in solving the mystery of his former mentor Frank Minna’s murder, he can do right by Frank and obtain justice on his behalf. Lionel is one of two-bit Brooklyn gangster Frank Minna’s “Minna Men,” a group of orphans whom Frank began using as flunkies in his burgeoning criminal enterprise years ago. Frank sought to start a “legitimate” detective agency by hiring the Minna Men as his amateur, weaponless “detectives.” But now, Frank himself has been mysteriously murdered, and Lionel believes that he is uniquely positioned to solve the mystery of Frank’s death. He begins following leads connected to a mysterious Upper East Side Zendo (or Buddhist house of worship); a giant Polish man; and a massive, shadowy apartment building rumored to be home to the city’s most obscenely wealthy residents. Lionel believes that by finding the facts and solving the mystery, he’ll be able to give Frank’s memory the justice it deserves. Even as Lionel hones in on the disparate answers to the sprawling mystery in front of him, however, it becomes clear that just figuring out what happened to Frank won’t bring him back—and it certainly won’t heal the emotional wound that Lionel sustained in experiencing the death of his mentor and the closest thing he ever had to a father. Nevertheless, Lionel pursues the answers to the increasingly absurd, haywire puzzle in front of him with a dogged determination, believing that there is still hope. As Lionel connects romantically with Kimmery, a student at the Zendo who may be able to help Lionel uncover the place’s secrets, he engages in the following fantasy: “Here Minna would be properly mourned. Here I’d find surcease for my pain and the answer to the puzzle of Tony and […] why Minna […] had to die […] and I would never tic again.” In solving the mystery, Lionel sees not only justice for Frank but an end to his own struggles with otherness, with Tourette’s, and with the inability to make sense of a hostile, corrupt world.

Toward the end of the novel, Lethem demonstrates Lionel’s sense of defeat and feelings of futility in the aftermath of having obtained the entire story of Frank’s death from Frank’s widow, Julia. Lionel at last realizes, with all the information he wanted at his disposal, that the facts alone stand to bring no closure, no justice, and no path to redemption. By the end of the novel, Lionel has successfully solved Frank Minna’s murder. He has assembled all of the facts and realized that he has a choice between inaction and vengeance. Though he gives the thought of vengeance “five or ten minutes of [his] time,” he ultimately decides that there is no point in continuing to run “the labyrinth that runs under the world”—that is, the labyrinth of truth about the world’s corruption. He knows better now, he says, than to let his “obsessive instinct” get the best of him. The ghosts of those he’s lost—and those he once believed were “[his] to protect”—still haunt him, but Lionel ends the novel by stating that he is going to let them stay “busy howling at the windows” rather than infiltrate the “house” of his consciousness. Lionel’s resigned, exhausted state at the end of the novel reflects the futility of “solving” a mystery. Lionel has all the facts—but he has realized how deep the corruption within his city runs and how profoundly depraved the human spirit can truly be. He knows that in the face of such widespread immorality and illegality, he is just one man who can’t do much of anything. “I can’t feel guilty about every last body,” Lionel states in the book’s final lines, revealing his understanding of the fact that neither guilt nor a foolish attempt to take down the powers that be will bring Frank back. Lionel wanted answers—but now that he has them, he realizes how futile they truly are. 

“Put an egg in your shoe, and beat it. Make like a tree, and leave. Tell your story walking,” Lionel entreats readers in the final lines of Motherless Brooklyn. Lionel—and Lethem—have led readers on a twisting, urgent journey through Brooklyn and beyond in search of answers and justice. Now, having realized that the former does not necessarily beget the latter, Lionel admits there is little one can do in the face of injustice except move on and “tell [one’s] story.” Lionel has proven himself a true noir detective: disappointed by the world, disheartened by the corruption all around him, and unable to reconcile the idea that solving a mystery doesn’t mean that justice is done.