History Literature / MotherlessBrooklyn

* AFatherToHisMen: Frank Minna to Lionel, the rest of the Minna Men, at least at the start of their relationship.

* {{Siblings in Crime}}: Frank and Gerard Minna. Also, while they aren't biologically related, all of the Minna Men.
* {{Sibling Triangle}}: Between [[spoiler:Frank, Julia, and Girard Minna]]; also between [[spoiler:the various Minna Men and Julia, except the Minnas are emotional brothers rather than biological]].

* {{What Now Ending}}: So Lionel's solved Frank's murder, but [[spoiler:Kimmery leaves him, he doesn't know if he's imagined Ullman or not, the closest thing he has to a family has dispersed around him, and his entire father/son relationship with Minna has been called into question]]; kind of a downer, actually.

** There's also Film/JamesBond, Franchise/{{Superman}}, Tourette's compared to being {{The Invisible Man}} and all this in the first 100 pages.

** There's also Film/JamesBond, {{Superman}} Tourette's compared to being {{The Invisible Man}} and all this in the first 100 pages.

It's a sweet, exciting, kind of sad story that won the 1999 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2000 Gold Dagger award for Crime fiction. A loose film adaptation, reimagined in the 1950s and directed, written by and starring Creator/EdwardNorton as Lionel, spent 20 years going through DevelopmentHell, but was eventually made and released on November 1st, 2019.

''Motherless Brooklyn'' is a postmodern novel by Creator/JonathanLethem which tells the tale of Lionel Essrog, low level gangster/detective extraordinary, afflicted with Tourette's Syndrome. Essrog works for Brooklyn Gangster Frank Minna, as one of his Minna Men, along with three boys he grew up with in a Brooklyn orphanage. When Frank is killed, Lionel takes it upon himself to solve the crime. Taking his cues from hard boiled detective films, Lionel finds himself making enemies of elderly mobsters and a zen Buddhist center. The mystery deepens when Lionel becomes involved with Minna's ex wife as well as Buddist practitioner Kim, and learns more about his old boss and father figure than he ever thought possible.

It's a sweet, exciting, kind of sad story that won the 1999 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2000 Gold Dagger award for Crime fiction. A film adaptation (set in the 1950s) was planned to be released in 2013, directed, adapted and starring Creator/EdwardNorton. Despite going through DevelopmentHell, it was eventually made and released on November 1st, 2019.