Fortress of Solitude

by Jonathan Lethem

Paperback, 528 pages

English language

Published Jan. 6, 2005 by Faber & Faber, Limited.

ISBN:: 978-0-571-21935-3

(8 reviews)

This is the story of two boys, Dylan Ebdus and Mingus Rude. They live in Brooklyn and are friends and neighbours; but since Dylan is white and Mingus is black, their friendship is not simple.

This is the story of 1970s America, a time when the simplest decisions - what music you listen to, whether to speak to the kid in the seat next to you, whether to give up your lunch money - are laden with potential political, social and racial disaster. This is also the story of 1990s America, when nobody cared anymore.

This is the story of what would happen if two teenaged boys obsessed with comic book heroes actually had superpowers: they would screw up their lives. --back cover

1 edition

Chris reviewed Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem

None

5 stars

Have I, somehow, forgotten the second half of this novel, which sounds like something by Nick Hornby? Because what I remember was the vividness of the growing up in the inner city sequences which made me bitterly nostalgic for my own growing up in West London which is not that different, although a funk band or two and some superhero action would have made all the difference. I lent this book to one of my friends babbling of its excellence but he never returned it. The graffiti saying THE NIGHT along Hammersmith Road has faded or been scrubbed off. Drugs may kill, but the system kills you deader.