Chronic City A Novel
Chronic City, a novel by Jonathan Lethem, published by Doubleday in 2009, spans 467 pages and is presented in English. This work explores the lives of Manhattanites entangled in their own delusions and desires, centering on Chase Insteadman, a former child star whose fiancée, Janice Trumbull, is stranded on the International Space Station. As Chase navigates his routine filled with social events, he becomes increasingly aware of the complexities of reality and illusion, particularly through his interactions with a diverse cast of characters.
Readers will find a vivid portrayal of urban life as Chase is drawn into the world of Perkus Tooth, a pop critic whose conspiratorial insights challenge Chase’s perceptions. The narrative delves into themes of truth and authenticity amid the backdrop of a city that is both alluring and deceptive. Alongside characters like Oona Laszlo and Richard Abneg, Chase embarks on a quest for meaning, confronting the blurred lines between reality and fiction. Lethem’s narrative captures the essence of Manhattan, reflecting its beauty and chaos while inviting readers to ponder the nature of existence within this unique urban landscape.
Official synopsis Publisher
The acclaimed author ofMotherless BrooklynandThe Fortress of Solitudereturns with a roar with this gorgeous, searing portrayal of Manhattanites wrapped in their own delusions, desires, and lies.
Chase Insteadman, a handsome, inoffensive fixture on Manhattan’s social scene, lives off residuals earned as a child star on a beloved sitcom calledMartyr & Pesty. Chase owes his current social cachet to an ongoing tragedy much covered in the tabloids: His teenage sweetheart and fiancée, Janice Trumbull, is trapped by a layer of low-orbit mines on the International Space Station, from which she sends him rapturous and heartbreaking love letters. Like Janice, Chase is adrift, she in Earth’s stratosphere, he in a vague routine punctuated by Upper East Side dinner parties.
Into Chase’s cloistered city enters Perkus Tooth, a wall-eyed free-range pop critic whose soaring conspiratorial riffs are fueled by high-grade marijuana, mammoth cheeseburgers, and a desperate ache for meaning. Perkus’s countercultural savvy and voracious paranoia draw Chase into another Manhattan, where questions of what is real, what is fake, and who is complicit take on a life-shattering urgency. Along with Oona Laszlo, a self-loathing ghostwriter, and Richard Abneg, a hero of the Tompkins Square Park riot now working as a fixer for the billionaire mayor, Chase and Perkus attempt to unearth the answers to several mysteries that seem to offer that rarest of artifacts on an island where everything can be bought: Truth.
Like Manhattan itself, Jonathan Lethem’s masterpiece is beautiful and tawdry, tragic and forgiving, devastating and antic, a stand-in for the whole world and a place utterly unique.
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