Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Motherless Brooklyn, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Mystery and the Futility of Answers
Difference and Otherness
Masculinity, Father Figures, and Mentorship
Language, Communication, and Understanding
Summary
Analysis
In the opening lines of the novel, Lionel Essrog describes his experiences moving through life with Tourette’s, a neurological disorder characterized by compulsory, uncontrollable, repetitive verbal and physical tics. Lionel feels that his tics and vocalizations allow him to smooth away the imperfections of the world—but sometimes, when he pushes his tics too far, he finds himself actually creating more wrinkles and imperfections. Still, the impulse to tic quickly grows from an itch to a strain. “Eat me!” is one of Lionel’s most frequent tics.
Right away, Lethem establishes that the novel to come will be observed through the eyes of a character who often feels profoundly different from those around him. He thus introduces an investigation of language and communication, particularly how Lionel at once feels othered and empowered by his inability to control his speech.
Themes
Lionel is sitting in a car eating White Castle sliders with a man named Gilbert Coney. After Lionel screams out, “Eat me!” he feels himself able to concentrate more fully on the hamburger—food, he says, is one of the things that calms him most. Gilbert and Lionel are on a stakeout on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Together, they wait outside of a townhouse in the Yorkville neighborhood—but they have no idea what they are doing there. Their boss, Frank Minna, usually sends them on errands in Brooklyn—but here, the two are off the map.
Lethem begins teasing out the situation at hand and the connections among the players within it. By introducing the symbol of food almost immediately, Lethem suggests that the mechanism by which Lionel attains calm is soon to be disrupted—and it may never again function in the same way.
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Gilbert points to a sign on the doorway of the townhouse. Lionel can see that it reads “Yorkville Zendo.” Gilbert asks what a Zendo is. Lionel supposes that it has something to do with Zen Buddhism. As Lionel thinks about Zen, he feels an “echolalia salad” form in his brain as the impulse to repeat related words—“Zendo, Ken-like Zugng Fu, Feng Shui master, Fungo bastard, Zen masturbation, Eat me!”—rattles through his mind. Instead of vocalizing his tic, however, Lionel focuses on inspecting and eating his third slider. Gilbert has obtained six sliders for Lionel, knowing that Lionel’s compulsive instincts mean that he frequently needs to do things in sixes.
Lethem uses this passage to deepen his readers’ understanding of the peculiarities and particulars of Lionel’s viewpoint. Lionel’s ever-churning brain makes quick, almost unconscious associations which allow him to see things differently and more deeply than most people. Though Lionel talks about his Tourette’s like it’s a burden, it’s clear that his disorder is suited to his detective work in many ways.
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Gilbert and Lionel watch as a young woman in her twenties with short dark hair and glasses enters the Zendo using a key. Coney asks what the two of them are supposed to do, and Lionel suggests they just observe and take notes. Lionel opens the glove compartment, enjoying the sound it makes, and writes that a woman with glasses entered the building at 6:45 p.m. He slaps the compartment door six times. Lionel slightly resents how Tourette’s controls his behavior.
Whereas the previous passage showed how Lionel’s Tourettic symptoms often allow him to deepen his understanding of the world around him, this passage shows how they just as frequently function as roadblocks.
Themes
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Lionel hears Frank Minna’s voice. He looks out of his window and sees that Frank has ducked down beside the car. Lionel rolls down his window and compulsively taps Frank’s shoulder, a gesture Frank that has put up with for over 15 years. Minna asks for a cigarette, and Gilbert gives him one. Minna tells Coney and Lionel that he’s going inside the Zendo, and he asks Gilbert to follow him inside and wait at the bottom of the stairs. Gilbert protests, but Minna hushes him. Minna drops a radio and headphones in Lionel’s lap and tells the two men that he’s wired.
Minna is clearly going into a situation that scares him—he’s wearing a wire and asking for backup to try to ensure some measure of safety for himself as he wades into the unknown. Meanwhile, his years-long toleration of Lionel’s quirks is a hint that he’s something of a father figure to the younger man, suggesting that even masculine role models can sometimes exhibit anxiety and vulnerability.
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Minna gives Gilbert and Lionel instructions as to what to do when he says certain things: if he says “Not if my life depended on it,” they should rush upstairs and find him. If he says he is going to use the bathroom, it means that he is coming downstairs with a group of men, and that Lionel and Gilbert should get ready to follow their car. Lionel repeats Minna’s instructions back to him, and Minna pinches Lionel’s cheek. Minna heads inside, and Coney follows him. Lionel slips his headphones on; confused and anxious, he eats a burger to calm himself.
This passage demonstrates several things: first, it shows how heavily Minna relies upon his men’s fealty and readiness. It shows how Lionel’s Tourette’s makes him valuable to Minna as a kind of parrot, adding further nuance to Lionel’s condition as something that both hinders him personally and helps him professionally. Finally, it shows how Lionel continually attempts to self-soothe by distracting himself with food, stuffing his mouth in order to quiet it.
Themes
As Minna arrives upstairs, Lionel listens to his conversation with another man. Minna and the other man discuss complications about a contract for a building. The other voice invites Minna to sit and talk. Minna resists and asks where Ullman is. The other man tells Minna that Ullman is downtown. Minna swears and suggests they “call the whole thing off.” Lionel listens carefully, taking notes as he listens to the men settle in and pour drinks. He is unable to suppress a verbal tic: “Eat shit, Bailey!” he screams. Lionel explains that Bailey is a name only has meaning in the context of his Tourette’s—he has no idea who Bailey is or where the name comes from, but Bailey functions as a kind of “target.”
As Lionel explains the logic—or lack thereof—behind one of his most prominent tics, it becomes clear that the conscious and the subconscious are commingled within his brain. Lionel has a great deal of anger and frustration but nowhere to aim it; in creating “Bailey,” consciously or unconsciously, Lionel has created a repository for his frustrations.
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Lionel listens as Frank and the unnamed man discuss a mysterious woman. The man accuses Frank of “los[ing] control of her,” while Frank retorts that she simply misses her “Rama-lama-ding-dong.” As Lionel struggles to understand the opaque, confusing conversation, his nerves—and his tics—increase. Lionel is startled when the doorman of a nearby apartment building knocks on his window. He rolls it down, and the doorman tells him that his “friend” wants him. Lionel waves the doorman off as he desperately tries to control his tic and simultaneously listen to the conversation taking place over the wire. The doorman, however, is insistent. Lionel tells the doorman to get the name of the man who wants him. The doorman again insists Lionel come in, and Lionel says that he’ll be right there.
The mysterious events of the evening increase in intensity as Lionel struggles both to understand a confusing conversation and to make himself understood when a strange individual approaches his car. The conversation Lionel is listening to sets the scene for the novel’s core mystery—yet because Lionel hears only bits and pieces, it is clear that the burgeoning detective has his work cut out for him.
Themes
Lionel hears Frank ask to use the toilet over the radio. Lionel realizes it is time to go. He gets out of the car, pushes the doorman out of the way, and retrieves Gilbert from the Zendo. The two of them hustle back to the car and Coney takes the wheel. Lionel resists the urge to tic as his anxiety worsens. Soon, Minna and another man—a “giant” in a black coat who stands about seven feet tall—emerge from the Zendo. Minna and the giant get into a car. The car pulls away, and Coney begins following it.
As Frank exits the Zendo with another person—as he warned Lionel and Gilbert that he might—it is nonetheless clear that Frank has firmly lost control of the situation. Lionel and Gilbert, desperate to save their mentor, leap into action—even as Lethem implies that this night is the most “action” they’ve ever seen in their tenure as detectives.
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Lionel tries to listen on the radio, but he cannot hear anything. Through his tics, he urges Gilbert to get closer—but in the thick Second Avenue traffic, it is impossible. With no place for his stress to go, Lionel’s tics worsens. Further downtown, at Fifty-eighth Street, the black car in which Minna is travelling speeds through a light—Coney and Lionel are left behind as the black car speeds through traffic, clearly attempting to lose its tail. As soon as they can, Coney and Lionel speed forth, no longer trying to disguise the fact that they are tailing the black car. Coney follows the car into the Midtown Tunnel toward Queens. At the end of the tunnel, Lionel pulls together the fare—but he is disappointed when the other car hurries through an E-Z Pass lane.
As the chase quickens and the drama mounts, Lionel copes with the buildup of stress in his body by uttering a series of verbal tics, again illustrating how Tourette’s is a way in which Lionel copes and interacts with what’s happening around him. Lethem also uses this passage to parody classic car chases—mundanities such as the lack of an E-Z Pass, for instance, slow Lionel and Coney down and mirror for readers the banal frustrations of everyday life.
Themes
Gilbert and Lionel, having lost the black car, pull over on a random street in Queens after searching fruitlessly for several blocks. Lionel listens desperately to the radio, hoping that Minna will drop a clue over the wire. Sure enough, within a few minutes, Minna makes a sardonic remark about the large Polish man in the car with him needing to “stay within sniffing distance of a pierogi.” Immediately, Lionel hears the sound of Minna being hit. Lionel asks where a nearby Polish neighborhood, and Coney replies that Greenpoint is Polish. Though Greenpoint is across another bridge, in Brooklyn, Lionel and Gilbert decide to head there.
Lionel knows that Minna won’t leave him stranded—and indeed Minna does his best to leave hints for his men, even though doing so endangers his own life. Minna’s propensity for jokes based on racial and ethnic stereotypes (pierogis are a Polish food) allows him to slyly drop a hint about his location—but his remark offends his captor and also tips him off as to the fact that Frank is wearing a wire.
Themes
Lionel hears Minna make another remark over the radio—he says something about “Harry Brainum Jr.” Lionel knows Minna is trying to give him clues, but he is uncertain of what Minna’s talking about. Lionel becomes more anxious as he hears Minna being hit repeatedly. Gilbert realizes that they’ve just passed a sign reading Harry Brainum Jr.; Lionel urges Coney to turn back, and he does. Lionel and Gilbert circle the block slowly, noting a large Dumpster near the entrance to the Brainum hardware warehouse. There is no sign of the black car, but Lionel insists that Minna must be here. Lionel gets out of the car and walks on the sidewalk as Coney drives the car beside him. Soon, Lionel spots Minna’s wire on the ground near the Dumpster.
Minna manages to successfully lead Gilbert and Lionel to his location—but by the time they find him, there is a sense of dread in the air as well as physical evidence of what has happened to Minna. Lionel isn’t surprised by the high-stakes, violent turn the evening has taken—he knows that Minna has dealings with shady, dangerous people, and he is clearly used to successfully getting Minna out of lower-stakes situations.
Themes
Lionel rushes for the Dumpster. As he approaches, he hears Minna moan. As Lionel pulls himself up over the rim of the Dumpster, he realizes that the lip of it is covered in blood. Minna is curled up in the garbage clutching his stomach—Minna, too, is covered in blood. With Gilbert’s help, Lionel pulls Minna from the dumpster and hurries him into the car. Minna gives Lionel and Coney directions to Brooklyn Hospital, the nearest emergency room. Lionel performs tics and barks as Minna breathes unsteadily in the backseat. Minna tells Lionel that he's dropping his wallet, watch, and beeper on the floor—he doesn’t want them stolen at the hospital. Minna explains that he was stabbed, but he won’t tell Lionel or Coney who knifed him.
The mystery deepens as the injured Minna refuses to name his attackers—yet he leaves behind bridges to solving the mystery in the form of his possessions. Minna is not long for this world, yet he very obviously doesn’t want to involve Lionel or Gilbert any more deeply in what’s going on.
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Minna asks Lionel to tell him a joke, so Lionel tells a silly joke about a man who brings his pet octopus to a bar, betting the bartender $100 that the octopus can play any instrument. The bartender presents the octopus with a succession of instruments, each of which the octopus plays skillfully. Finally, the bartender hands the octopus a set of bagpipes. When the octopus struggles with the bagpipes, the octopus’s owner urges the octopus to hurry up and play them. The octopus says that he’s not going to play the instrument—instead, if he can get its clothing off, he’s going to have sex with it. Minna doesn’t laugh. Lionel, Gilbert, and Minna ride the rest of the way to the hospital in near silence. Minna still refuses to tell Lionel or Coney who stabbed him.
Minna loves jokes—but he doesn’t respond at all to the one Lionel tells him, either out of disappointment or the distracting force of the pain he’s in. Minna’s deadpan reaction to Lionel’s joke implies that Lionel didn’t tell the joke Minna wanted to hear—and that the joke he was hoping for may be a clue to what’s going on, even if Minna refuses to tell the men what’s happening outright.
Themes
As Minna instructs Gilbert to illegally enter the hospital via an ambulance ramp, Lionel’s brain goes into overdrive, and he silently engages in wordplay revolving around the octopus joke, Minna’s stabbing, and the hospital until he screams nonsense and begins to cry. A security guard named Albert tries to wave Coney’s car away from the ambulance entrance, but Lionel insists Albert find them a stretcher. The car smells like blood, and Minna looks terrible. Two interns hurry out to take Minna inside. As Lionel follows the stretcher, Minna asks what the name in the punchline of a joke Lionel used to tell about a Jewish lady traveling to Tibet to see the High Lama. Lionel tells Minna that the name is “Irving.” Lionel asks if the name Irving is a clue, but before Minna can answer, a doctor intubates Minna and hurries him into surgery.
This passage shows how in an impossibly difficult and chaotic moment, Lionel turns to language—and his conscious and unconscious processing of it—in order to make sense of the world around him. Throughout the novel, Lethem will explore how language and communication allow individuals to form bridges between themselves and the rest of the world—and how for Lionel, whose inner world already revolves around grasping at language, the chaotic, painful, and nonsensical parts of the physical world are made more palatable through language.
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In the chaotic waiting area, Lionel sits beside Gilbert and replays the events of the evening. He begins performing tics, drawing the stares of others in the room. Albert approaches Lionel and, assuming Lionel is drunk, tells Lionel that he “can’t be like that in here.” Lionel continues performing tics as Coney sticks up for Lionel, explaining that he has a condition. Lionel struggles mightily against the impulse to grab Albert’s nightstick. He continues performing verbal tics until a triage nurse calls for Coney and Lionel: the doctor has news about Minna.
This passage shows how poorly other people understand Lionel and demonstrates how much cruelty and prejudice he faces because of his condition. Lionel has a hard enough time connecting to the world around him—and that tenuous connection is made more difficult when people refuse to extend him any empathy or understanding.
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The doctor who wheeled Minna into surgery earlier approaches Gilbert and Lionel and tells them that there was nothing he could do for Minna. Coney, not understanding the doctor, asks to see Frank. Lionel, realizing what is happening, erratically performs tics and nearly vomits. The doctor tells Coney firmly but gently that Frank is dead. Lionel begins tapping the doctor. Coney demands to see Minna, but the doctor refuses—Minna’s body, he explains, is now evidence. The medical examiners, the doctor says, want to speak with Coney and Lionel. Lionel, however, tells Coney that they need to leave quickly. The doctor asks Albert to bring Coney and Lionel to speak with some policemen.
In this passage, Lethem shows how Lionel and Gilbert react very differently to the devastating news of their shared mentor’s death. Lionel uses his Tourettic tics, both verbal and physical, to remain grounded in the face of a painful, disorienting moment, while Gilbert jumps immediately to denial and anger.
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Given the threatening vibe that he and Gilbert give off as large, suited “Minna Men,” Lionel knows that he and Coney will be able to walk out of the hospital. Lionel shouts at the doctor nonsensically as Coney rebuffs the doctor and heads past Albert toward the exit.
This passage shows how Lionel’s Tourette’s is useful in difficult situations as an excuse or a form of distraction. Lionel’s disorder often inhibits his ability to be invisible or unnoticeable—but in situations where an all-out offensive is required, Tourette’s is actually quite helpful. Lethem will go on to explore how Lionel has been taught, for better or worse, to use his condition to his advantage in situations like this one.
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