Jonathan Lethem

Lionel Essrog has Tourette's syndrome and works for a small Brooklyn detective agency run by Frank Minna. When Frank is murdered, Lionel — compelled by tics, verbal eruptions, and the inability to leave a pattern unresolved — investigates his mentor's death. A genre novel about the detective impulse as a form of neurological necessity.

Dylan Ebdus grows up on a block in Brooklyn's Gowanus neighbourhood in the 1970s, the only white kid, best friends with Mingus Rude, a Black boy with a ring that may give its wearer superpowers. The novel traces their friendship across decades — from childhood through the 1990s — as the neighbourhood and their lives diverge irreparably.