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The Collapsing Frontier

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( 63 ratings, 18 reviews)
Brief Description
Having stormed mainstream literature from the outskirts, Lethem has won a readership both wide and deep, all of whom appreciate his literary excellence, his mordant but compassionate humour, and the cultish attentiveness of his SF origins. He has earned the right to tread anywhere, and his... Read More
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Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Having stormed mainstream literature from the outskirts, Lethem has won a readership both wide and deep, all of whom appreciate his literary excellence, his mordant but compassionate humour, and the cultish attentiveness of his SF origins. He has earned the right to tread anywhere, and his many admirers are ready to follow.

This collection compiles his intensely personal thoughts on the most interesting and deplorable topics in post-postmodern America. It moves from original new fiction to insights on popular culture, cult and canonical authors, and problematic people.

Plus...

"David Bowman and the Furry-Girl School of American Fiction" is a personal true adventure, as Lethem tries (with the help of a seeming expert) to elbow his way into literary respectability. The Collapsing Frontier and "In Mugwump Four" are fictions mapping ominous new realms. "Calvino's 'Lightness' and the Feral Child of History" is an intimate encounter with a legendary author. In "My Year of Reading Lemmishly" and "Snowden in the Labyrinth," he explores courage, art, and the search for truth, with wildly different results.

And Featuring: Our usual Outspoken Interview, in which Lethem reveals the secret subtext of his books, how he spent his MacArthur award money, and how a Toyota he owned was used in the robbery of a fast-food restaurant.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781629634883

Publisher: PM Press

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 18 April 2024

Country: United States

Imprint: PM Press

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 127.0mm

Height: 190.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 176

About the Author

Jonathan Lethem is the author of The Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn, as well as more recent best-sellers, The Feral Detective and The Arrest. Several of his novels have been made into major movies, and his shorter works can often be found in the New Yorker, the Atlantic, and many other venues. One of the MacArthur "Genius" grant winners, Lethem is well-known and widely respected for his vivid literary style, sardonic humor, and deep understanding of American culture. He teaches creative writing at Pomona College.

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  • Girl in Landscape
    Girl in Landscape offers a genre-bending, mind-expanding tale of a new frontier. Jonathan Lethem's novel is a science-fiction Western that evokes both the brooding tragedy of John Ford's The Searchers and the sexual precocity of Nabokov's Lolita. Lethem's heroine is 14-year-old Pella Marsh, whose mother dies just as her family flees a post-apocalyptic Brooklyn for the frontier of a recently...
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  • The Feral Detective
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  • Brooklyn Crime Novel
    1978 and two 14-year-old white boys are creating dubious art by using a hacksaw to cut multiple quarters into pieces. A child who's just bought ice cream from a Mr. Softee truck witnesses a daylight sidewalk shooting in 1979. At another time, a couple of blocks over, a kid gets caught trying to shoplift an adult magazine from a Puerto...
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  • The Collapsing Frontier
    Having stormed mainstream literature from the outskirts, Lethem has won a readership both wide and deep, all of whom appreciate his literary excellence, his mordant but compassionate humour, and the cultish attentiveness of his SF origins. He has earned the right to tread anywhere, and his many admirers are ready to follow. This collection compiles his intensely personal thoughts on...
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  • Motherless Brooklyn
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  • Motherless Brooklyn; Fortress of Solitude
    In honour of the 25th anniversary of Motherless Brooklyn - a beautifully published Everyman's Library hardcover omnibus edition of two of the most acclaimed novels by one of America's most inventive novelists. Motherless Brooklyn is a compulsively readable riff on the classic noir detective novel. Brooklyn's self-appointed Human Freakshow, Lionel Essrog, is an orphan whose Tourettic impulses drive him to...
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    From the funked-up, messed-up Brooklyn of the 1970s to the present day, this stunning novel spans thirty years in the life of two best friends, Dylan and Mingus, their families, and an entire neighbourhood. From their stories come the history of soul music, of graffiti art, of comic books, of experimented film and 'rock writing'. With a cast of more...
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