Tic, Tic, Tic

As I mentioned in one of my comments below, Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem is a twist on the detective genre. The protagonist/narrator has Tourette's Syndrome, which affects both his behavior in the novel and his narration. One of a group of boys who have grown up in an orphanage in Brooklyn, he and the rest of them are hired at a very young age by a thug who runs a limo service/detective agency. The boss is murdered at the beginning of the story, and the protagonist, Lionel, spends the rest of the book figuring out who did it.

I confess I didn't always follow the plot twists, because it was on audio and I was driving, after all. But Frank Muller does a pretty amazing job on the voices, and on Lionel's compulsive speech. I have no idea how accurate the Tourette's depiction is, but the narrator explains all his tics as they're happening, and what he does to try to stop them, or how he gives in and uses them to his advantage. It helps that the character's well read; his echolalia, or verbal tics, turn into absorbing poetic narration.

Jonathan Lethem was interviewed recently on Studio 360; you can hear the interview here; click on Lethem, Bird, Dolly.