Fellow book lovers may recall a certain billboard that was all the rage back in the Fall of 2011:
Indeed, Mr. Eugenides and his vest (and their novel, The Marriage Plot) caused quite a stir.
Well, now it’s a new year, a new Fall season, and we have a new novelist we have officially deemed Billboard Worthy: Jonathan Lethem.
His new novel, Dissident Gardens, is one of our favorites this year. Julie describes it: “Set in Sunnyside, Queens, Dissident Gardens tells the story of Rose Zimmerman and her daughter Miriam from the 1930s to present day. This is not, however, your typical mother-daughter story. Lethem gives you a sharp view of the evolution of leftist revolutionary politics across the decades, from Communism to the Occupy Movement. And he introduces you to a lot of characters. There’s Lenny, who wants the Mets to be names the Sunnyside Proletarians. There’s Cicero, the son of Miriam’s lover. There’s an Irish folksinging husband. There’s all of New York. This just might be my favorite Lethem novel to date.”
If you’re a fan of his previous work (Fortress of Solitude, Chronic City, and Motherless Brooklyn are generally top of the list, though we also recommend his nonfiction and even digging into some of the earlier, Sci Fi-flavored stuff for a well rounded Portrait of the Artist on the Billboard), you’ll love Dissident Gardens.
We love the fact that Lethem will be here next week (Friday, October 25 at 7pm, to be precise) to speak about and sign his new book. (Think he’ll sign our billboard, too?)
We also love the fact that the photo on the billboard was taken at Lethem’s Occupy Wall Street reading. We mean it when we say revolutionary (and when we say we love this book; you want a crash course in about eight decades of American protest politics, grab yourself a copy.)
(P.S. – Jeffrey, we still totally love you, too. And if Lorrie Moore is sent our way for her new story collection in 2014, rest assured, she, too, will receive the BookPeople Billboard Treatment.)
BookPeople 