The Fortress of Solitude

 The Fortress of Solitude

By Jonathan Lethem

This year marked the 20th anniversary of my graduation from college; I was unable, or unwilling, to attend

my reunion. But it felt like a milestone worth marking. So I decided to reread this novel, which I consumed while on a transcontinental train ride from LA to Boston that I took from college to NH, where my parents still lived.

The first part of the book I remembered quite clearly. It features Dylan, whose parents, especially his mother, move the family into Brooklyn as part of some idealistic experiment. The mother had been a "Brooklyn kid", and so would her son. He is "one of only three white kids in his school." She is proud of this. His father, a painter who has decided that his life's work will be a hand-painted film that nobody will every likely see, is oblivious. The Ebdus' are not the only white newcomers to Dean St., but others are there less because of progressive ideals than conservative ones -- they wish to "reclaim" the neighborhood. They no longer live in Gowans, but in Boerum Hill.

Whiteness comes to define Dylan's childhood much as blackness defines others depending on who is the minority. It has its pros. He is exposed to everything that was hip in Brooklyn's black community in the 1970s, and will be in the rest of the white nation not long after. Deep funk. Weed. Graffiti. But it has its downsides too. He is constantly "yoked", or stolen from, usually with some sort of physical reminder of his lowly place in the world. The major saving grace is the arrival on Dean Street of Mingus Rude, who is the son of a once-famous soul singer and who becomes something of a best friend/protector to Dylan. Together, the two navigate adolescents with the help of a ring bestowed upon Dylan by a wino that he has seen fly. The ring helps them fly.

But it is only Dylan who is able to escape Dean Street. It isn't easy. He is expelled from a fancy Vermont college and winds up in Berkeley with a Brooklyn-sized chip on his shoulder. He lives in the past, penning the liner notes to box sets of old blues and soul records. 

I found that the story lost its vitality a bit in the second part of the book, when Dylan tries to reckon with his childhood. I wish the ring and its magical powers, which threaten to send the book into parts beyond realistic fiction, had played a larger role. But, still. It's a brilliant book. Perhaps I will revisit it in another 10 years.