Brooklyn Crime Novel, while not entirely plotless, operates in a mode that feels more like a series of historical vignettes. If it weren't for Lethem's singular diction, the emotion-less presentation of events could have had a textbook feel. By shifting points of view, the book relates the lives of a handful of children, of all shapes, sizes, and colors, growing up in the late 60s and 70s during the gentrification of Brooklyn. None of the children are given names. Instead, they are given identifiers—screamer, millionaire's son, board game boy, slipper, etc., which adds to the distance between reader and character. Their individual stories have arcs, but they are flat, short, and focused on the quotidian details of their lives as they link to Lethem's theme.
You see, the 'crime' in Brooklyn Crime Novel is not murder, carjacking, gang violence, or armed robbery. Rather, it's the myriad of injustices these children face daily. Sheep to the lions, they go out onto their evolving Brooklyn streets—to school, to the subway, to the corner shop, to the sidewalk, to the apartments under renovation—and are there subject to all the little things that make life unfair. Being shaken down for lunch money, bullies, turf protection, passive aggressiveness, domestic abuse, etc., etc. It's a book chock full of paper cut suffering.
Yes, Brooklyn Crime Novel is an unending procession of victims (Brooklyn Victim Novel is more accurate). Lethem does occasionally relate the offender's side of things, to humanize the people performing the subjugation, not to mention occasionally give the victims some agency (the sawed-coins gag is truly clever). But the offenders too, in turn, become victims to a partial degree. There is a series of three vignettes, for example, describing the different types of muggings. These examples resolve themselves in atypical fashion, giving the mugger a human touch. Lethem never blames the mugger's environment for their choices (i.e. victim proper), but these moments are not enough to balance the majority of character stories which are clear portrayals of people dragged down by their surroundings and social interactions.
You just double-checked when the novel was published, didn't you? Yes, it was published in 2023, a time when the bandwagon of social justice was piled high and many an author was trying to jump on. But while identity tags fill the novel (Latino, white, Black, boy, girl, homosexual, etc.), Lethem does not play favorites, at least largely. For unstated reasons, all the ethnic tags are capitalized (Black, Latino, Hispanic, etc.), but white remains plain, old white. No capital letter for you. Beyond that small (but important detail?), Lethem shoots all characters equally with the victim gun.
Accentuating
the victim parade is Lethem's sparse yet precise style. I have my
challenges with the novel's substance, but zero complaints about
style. In fact, Lethem puts on a clinic: how to write minimalist
prose that effectively yet indirectly hits the nail on the
character/setting/dialogue head. Word by word, it's an amazing
read.
In the end, Brooklyn Crime Novel is nothing like Motherless Brooklyn or The Fortress of Solitude. A social justice novel, Lethem plays off the gentrification of Brooklyn in the 60-70s to portray the myriad ways children of the era, of all stripes, were made to suffer. In contrast to many such novels which portray both the warmth and pain of growing up, it's only pain, and the novel is depressing, almost nihilistic for it. There are a small handful of humorous scenes, but by and large there are few bright spots. (Surely those kids likewise had moments of joy?) A wonderfully well written novel, just difficult to get out from the clouds.
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