James Walton

King of the Bears

The male members of a feuding hippie commune need a new king. Enter Charles Heist, grizzled Californian private eye

issue 06 April 2019

Jonathan Lethem’s new book is billed as ‘his first detective novel since Motherless Brooklyn’, which won America’s national book critics circle award for fiction in 1999. But if you’ve ever read his work, you’ll know not to expect a straightforward crime-solving tale — or anything like it. Throughout his career, Lethem has set out to wrong-foot his readers with a tricksy blend of realism, literary pastiche, ruminations on America and narrative elements that are deeply, even recklessly, odd.

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