The Fortress of Solitude

By: Jonathan Lethem

Narrated by: David Aaron Baker

Length: 18 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

This is the story of two boys, Dylan Ebdus and Mingus Rude. They are friends and neighbors, but because Dylan is white and Mingus is black, their friendship is not simple. This is the story of their Brooklyn neighborhood, which is almost exclusively black despite the first whispers of something that will become known as "gentrification."

This is the story of 1970s America, a time when the most simple human 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 the story of 1990s America, when no one cared anymore.

This is the story of punk, that easy white rebellion, and crack, that monstrous plague. This is the story of the loneliness of the avant-garde artist and the exuberance of the graffiti artist. 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.

This is the story of joyous afternoons of stickball and dreaded years of schoolyard extortion. This is the story of belonging to a society that doesn't accept you. This is the story of prison and of college, of Brooklyn and Berkeley, of soul and rap, of murder and redemption.

This is the story Jonathan Lethem was born to tell. This is The Fortress of Solitude.

©2002 Jonathan Lethem (P)2003 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Glorious, chaotic, raw. . . . One of the richest, messiest, most ambitious, most interesting novels of the year. . . . Lethem grabs and captures 1970s New York City, and he brings to it a story worth telling." ( Time)

“The finest novel of the year, by far, and likely of the past five. . . . Better than a movie, better than a symphony, better than a play, and better than a painting, because it is all of them.” ( Austin Chronicle)

"A tour de force . . . Belongs to a venerable New York literary tradition that stretches back through Go Tell it On the Mountain, A Walker in the City, and Call it Sleep." ( The New York Times)

Curious and ponderous

Lethem, in The Fortress of Solitude, gives us an imaginative, ponderous story. Page after page of extraordinary writing, sensitive to the aspects of the characters, and viscerally distilled sentences parsed on a razor’s edge. The characters are painted boldly and move the plot authentically; very memorable characters. The audible performance is very good.

Mind blowing pros

The author has a gift for use of the English language. This was my period growing up. I loved the bits about marvel and DC comics specifically.

So good until the last couple chapters

I loved this book and was totally invested in the characters and the story and all it's quirks. Then the story shifted dramatically for the last couple of chapters and I'm not sure why those chapters were even there. They felt duct taped on to the end of the story, they didn't fit, they didn't make much sense, they weren't interesting.

The book was still worth it. The layers of depth of this story and the characters were complex and interesting. I loved how often I found myself feeling so uncomfortable for the characters and really rooting for them. I really enjoyed the music theme throughout as well.

I recommend.

Dynamic Writing

This book is the story of lives, written in a way that allows the listener to become 100% involved with each character. Each sentence is unique, the writing pure poetry. I can't stop listening.

Masterful writing (and reading)

Tackles the complexities of race relations honestly and adroitly, and celebrates the nearly narcotic effect of music and "musicology." Best of all, juxtaposes the relative innocence of the 70s versus the solipsism of subsequent decades. Other reviewers have pointed out the dexterity of the prose. Truly wondrous in spots. And the narration is the best I've come across since joining up, the reader attempting (and nailing) a wide range of dialects, races, ages, and temperments. And at 18 hours, a bargain.

Very enjoyable but not his best work

I'm a huge Lethem fan, and I really enjoyed this book but, ..., not as much as others he has written. It's hugely ambitious, unsparing in character development, but I found the whole 'flying thing' distracting to rest of the larger message. Still worth a listen though.

decent story, mediocre writing

The characters are sympathetic and the plot interesting, but the writing couldn't support it - it ended up feeling self-indulgent too often.

a masterpiece

I loved the ride this book took me on. It was beautifully written, historically accurate, and incredibly well read by David Aaron Baker. Quite an achievement.

Took me there…

The book is so what I had hoped it would be, and the narration really held me… reading it along with the writers Mr. Lethem plqyed with and studied with at “Camden” has been so rewarding — they are ALL brilliant in their own ways. I loved it!

Awful

I can not tell you how boring this book was. I listened to it as long as I could, at least three quarters way through before I put it down. It never hooked me. I had to force myself to listen. I was more than patient. Characters were developed and then they went nowhere with it. It was a big disappointment and a waste of time.