About this item
Highlights
- Jonathan Lethem's first detective novel since Motherless Brooklyn"One of America's greatest storytellers.
- Author(s): Jonathan Lethem
- 336 Pages
- Fiction + Literature Genres, Mystery & Detective
Description
About the Book
Lethem's first detective novel since Motherless Brooklyn combines a vision of California that is at once scruffy and magnificent in a new work that emerges as a transporting, comic, and absolutely unforgettable.Book Synopsis
Jonathan Lethem's first detective novel since Motherless Brooklyn
"One of America's greatest storytellers." --Washington Post
Phoebe Siegler first meets Charles Heist in a shabby trailer on the eastern edge of Los Angeles. She's looking for her friend's missing daughter, Arabella, and hires Heist to help. A laconic loner who keeps his pet opossum in a desk drawer, Heist intrigues the sarcastic and garrulous Phoebe. Reluctantly, he agrees to help. The unlikely pair navigate the enclaves of desert-dwelling vagabonds and find that Arabella is in serious trouble--caught in the middle of a violent standoff that only Heist, mysteriously, can end. Phoebe's trip to the desert was always going to be strange, but it was never supposed to be dangerous. . . .
Jonathan Lethem's first detective novel since Motherless Brooklyn, The Feral Detective is a singular achievement by one of our greatest writers.
From the Back Cover
Phoebe Siegler first meets Charles Heist in a strip mall office on the eastern edge of Los Angeles. She's looking for her friend's missing daughter, Arabella, and hires Heist as a guide. A laconic loner who keeps his pet opossum in a desk drawer, Heist intrigues the sarcastic and garrulous Phoebe. Reluctantly, he agrees to help. The unlikely pair navigate the enclaves of desert-dwelling vagabonds and find that Arabella is in serious trouble--caught in the middle of a violent standoff that only Heist, mysteriously, can end. Phoebe's trip to the desert was always going to be strange, but it was never supposed to be dangerous . . .
Review Quotes
"A highbrow mystery. . . . Fans of Motherless Brooklyn take note." -- Washington Post
"Being a Jonathan Lethem novel, natural, The Feral Detective has plenty to say about American society along the way." -- Newsday
"Lethem [is] a master of the genre-bending detective novel and eccentric characters." -- Huffington Post
"The Feral Detective investigates our haunted America in all its contemporary guises -- at the edge of the city, beyond the blank desert, in the apartment next door. It's a nimble and uncanny performance, brimming with Lethem's trademark verve and wit." -- Colson Whitehead
"Like The Crying of Lot 49 as written and directed by Elaine May, The Feral Detective is hilarious and terrifying and wrenching. Phoebe is one of the grandest, funniest heroes I've come upon in a long time." -- Megan Abbott
"Wild, urgent, and very funny. As always, Lethem writes knowingly and brilliantly about weird, off-the-grid, wayward America. In his ever-more-electric prose, he illuminates both the barbarity and the beauty." -- Dana Spiotta
"I want to read a shelf of Heist. I want to make him my new Travis McGee, and that's, seriously, the highest praise I know." -- Joshua Cohen
"A funny but rage-fueled stunner. . . . Both [characters] are compelling, as are the desert setting and the vividly realized descriptions of its dwellers. . . . An unrelentingly paced tale. . . . Utterly unique and absolutely worthwhile." -- Booklist (starred review)
"Surrealistic, genre-bending. . . . The personal nature of Phoebe's tectonic shift in the desert is palpable, made flesh by Lethem's linguistic alchemy. . . . A haunting tour of the gulf between the privileged and the dispossessed." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)