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    The Feral Detective: From the Bestselling author of Motherless Brooklyn
    Unavailable
    The Feral Detective: From the Bestselling author of Motherless Brooklyn
    Unavailable
    The Feral Detective: From the Bestselling author of Motherless Brooklyn
    Ebook302 pages5 hours

    The Feral Detective: From the Bestselling author of Motherless Brooklyn

    By Jonathan Lethem

    3/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    'A nimble and uncanny performance, brimming with Lethem's trademark verve and wit' Colson Whitehead, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad

    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 - a laconic loner who keeps his pet opossum in a desk drawer - 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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAtlantic Books
    Release dateNov 1, 2018
    ISBN9781786497505
    Unavailable
    The Feral Detective: From the Bestselling author of Motherless Brooklyn
    Author

    Jonathan Lethem

    Jonathan Lethem is the bestselling author of twelve novels, including The Arrest, The Feral Detective, The Fortress of Solitude, and Motherless Brooklyn, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. He currently teaches creative writing at Pomona College in California.

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    Reviews for The Feral Detective

    3/5

    98 ratings10 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Such an enchanting and very different environment for a mystery story.
    • 3/5
      This is my 6th novel by Lethem. The first 3 were outstanding, The last 3 not so. Feral Detective is about an early thirties woman(Phoebe) who quits her job at the New York times in disgust over the election of Trump. She goes out to the inland empire of California east of L.A to find her good friend's 18 year old daughter who has left college and disappeared but may be in the Inland Empire. Having a female narrator in a book written by a man can work but not does so in this book. As usual Lethem has great prose with wonderful lines and lots of good humor. However having great dessert does not make a great meal. There were a lot of elements of the story that I found appealing, but the detective story did not work as such and the off the grid us versus them theme didn't add anything new to our ongoing national debate. For those who have not read any Lethem try "Motherless Brooklyn" as your introduction and stick with his earlier works. Of course, I will read his next book hoping against hope that he returns to his earlier career level.
    • 3/5
      A riff on Raymond Chandler's detective novels featuring a sardonic, first-person voice. Entertaining, but didn't meet my expectations. The reviews led one to believe this was something new and different. But the narrator was just another yappy, self-absorbed city person. A book jacket blurb compared the detective (Heist) to MacDonald's Travis McGee. Unfortunately the detective was a man of few words and not the main character. The setting in eastern California is the most interesting part.
    • 2/5
      The main character is one of the worst-written female characters I've read. She lives only for male attention, immediately needing to sleep with the titular detective for no apparent reason other than he's there. She's like the Edmund Hillary of hookups. Her inner monologues fail the Bechdel Test. As frustrating as all of that is, what really bothered me was Lethem's complete indifference to the details of how a woman might live. The character frequently mentions her purse, which makes an appearance in any situation -- hiking through the desert with no water, for example -- leaving me to wonder what _kind_ of purse it was. A clutch, a hobo, a tote, a satchel, a cross-body? A young Manhattanite working in media would have vocabulary for this. She would not say "purse". And, she would not call her toiletry bag a "Dopp kit". A simple Google search would have confirmed this for the author, but it seems like he didn't even clock the need to investigate what his character's reality might be like. Consequently, she doesn't read like any known human being, and the book is an unsatisfying and disappointing read.
    • 1/5
      Easily one of the worst books I have read in years. A huge disappointment after Motherless Brooklyn. Poor writing, ridiculous plot, and an unbelievable narrator. One star for me, just for showing up.
    • 1/5
      What a terrible book. I only read 1/2 of it, and if I hadn't been sick, I probably would have stopped at 1/10. Don't waste your time with one. Since when do I care what ever became of the 1960's hippies?
    • 4/5
      I really liked it, but I don't quite know what to think of it. It's a bit of an old-fashioned detective novel, but told from the POV of the dame who into the P.I.'s office looking for help and insists on inserting herself into the investigation rather than just leaving him to do his job. But it's also an examination? meditation? take-down? of the "us vs. them" mentality of American life post-election. It's kind of messy and occasionally rambling and sometimes wanders off the trail, which makes it a lot like life. And while, in retrospect, that messiness is part of what makes the novel work, while I was reading it sometimes got frustrating.

      Also: YAY, Doggos!
    • 4/5
      While trying to find her friend's missing teen daughter in the Los Angeles area, New Yorker Phoebe Siegler enlists the reluctant assistance of Charles Heist, a loner of few words who seems immune to Phoebe's sarcasm and nearly non-stop talking. I was expecting the story to be told from Heist's point of view; instead, it's told from Phoebe's narration as she continually reconsiders her opinion of Heist and even herself.The search for the missing Arabella takes Phoebe and Heist up a mountain, then into the desert where Phoebe encounters people living off the grid who challenge her way of thinking. The story is set in the early days of the Trump administration, which provides a backdrop for Phoebe's unraveling. Finding Arabella is the plot point that sets the story in motion, but it's Phoebe's snarky voice that gives the book its soul.
    • 2/5
      Affected and implausible.
    • 4/5
      The premise of this book had promise, particularly given the troubling and uncomfortable times that we cannot escape today. The lead character, Phoebe Siegler could have been the star of the book but instead she was self absorbed, insecure, prone to tantrums and silly banter that made me cringe more than the Trump she was running from.