Dissident Gardens

Jonathan Lethem is a literary chameleon, working here in something like a Philip Roth mode, unspooling a sometimes raunchy, often biting portrait of a New York counterculture family. Mark Bramhall is dazzling performing this mosaic of indelible oppositional characters. Rose Zimmer, Ashkenazy Communist from Queens and Jewish mother from hell? You'll never forget her. Nor Rose's German-Jewish husband, her black cop lover, daughter Miriam's diatribe to the father who abandoned her, or Rose's grandson, Sergius, who finds himself fecklessly enamored with (surprise) the Occupy movement. As Lethem moves back and forth in time, from pre-McCarthy proletarian dreams to '60's Greenwich Village (Dave Van Ronk makes an appearance) to Zuccotti Park, Bramhall delivers specific, convincing, vivid personalities and keeps Lethem's intricate machinery running swiftly and irresistibly. B.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine

May 20, 2013
While collective memory might offer some hazy grasp of McCarthyism and the Hollywood blacklists, all but forgotten is the real American Communist Party and its Depression-era heyday. In this epic and complex new novel, Lethem considers what happened to the ACP, as well as some other questions, about maternal isolation and filial resentment. The book begins with the case of Rose Zimmer, in Queens, New York, who was officially ousted from the party in 1955 for sleeping with a black cop. Rose’s daughter, Miriam, is a teenager at the time, and she soon discovers the pull of Greenwich Village bohemians. Rose’s and Miriam’s stories are interwoven, as the narrative moves back and forth in time, uncovering Rose’s doomed relationships, as well as Miriam’s fiery determination to escape her mother’s rage. Miriam’s son, Sergius, also comes into the story—as a child and an adult, juxtaposing three generations—along with Cicero Lookins, the son of Rose’s black cop boyfriend, an unexpected member of the family by proxy and the most interesting character of the book by far. Cicero formed an unexpected relationship with the bitter, Jewish woman as a kid, and, in turn, became a beneficiary of her intellect. All together, the cast makes for a heady, swirly mix of fascinating, lonely people. Lethem’s writing, as always, packs a witty punch. The epoch each character inhabits is artfully etched and the book is as illuminating of 20th-century American history as it is of the human burden of overcoming alienation. Agent: Eric Simonoff, WME Entertainment.

October 28, 2013
Lethem’s new novel, fast in pace and large in theme, takes place in the confines of the planned community of Sunnyside Gardens, Queens, and follows the devolution of a family of female radicals. There is matriarch Rose, exiled from her communist party due to her associations with a black police officer, and daughter Miriam, who rebels against Rose’s overbearing influence to partake in the counter-cultural movement in Greenwich Village. This audio edition is brilliantly performed by Mark Bramhall, who captures the sardonic defiance that permeates Lethem’s narrative and, by extension, the mentalities of Rose and Miriam. This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a sentimental book and Bramhall’s tone perfectly captures the harsh environment in which these two women exist. Still, while Bramhall is equally adept at capturing the anxieties and angry sarcasm of both mother and daughter, one wonders why Random House didn’t employ an actress. Despite the presence of numerous male characters, the women are the central and strongest figures in Lethem’s book. A Doubleday hardcover.