Men and Cartoons » (Reprint - 11 stories, expanded edition)

Jonathan Lethem has a talent for bending literary genres. He has been entertaining readers since 1994's Gun, with Occasional Music, a debut novel that contained all the ingredients of his future career as a writer: science fiction, pulp detective noir, westerns, and award-winning coming-of-age stories.

Jonathan Lethem's new collection of stories is a feast for his fans and the perfect introduction for new listeners-- a smorgasbord of fantastic, amusing, poignant tales written in a dizzying variety of styles. Lethem is a trailblazer fo a new kind of literary fiction, sampling high and low culture to create fictional worlds that are utterly original. Longtime fans will recognize echoes of Lethem's novels in all these pieces--narrators who can't stop babbling, hapless detectives, people with unusual powers that do them no good, hot-blooded academics, the keen loss of love, clever repartee masking desperation, stumbling romances, and the obligations of friendship.

Sparkling with off-beat humor and subtle insights that have made Lethem one of today's most highly praised writers, the stories in MEN AND CARTOONS will delight Lethem's legion of fans and appeal to a host of new listeners.

Publishers Weekly

Music resembling the theme from Star Wars-complete with bombastic kettledrums and an announcer who sounds like he's caught in an echo chamber-ironically introduces Lethem's offbeat collection of short stories. Though the stories deal with the extraordinary (i.e., superheroes, super inventions and, in one case, a look into the future), themes of loneliness, despair and absurdity usually prevail. Each offering opens with a mood-setting musical backdrop, against which the reader introduces him or herself and the selection. The nine stories are read by eight readers and, from the start, the standard-both literary and narrative-is set quite high. Actors David Aaron Baker, David Krumholtz and Kevin Corrigan each present fine readings, ably setting the tone their stories require. Less convincing, but still entertaining, is Sandra Bernhard, who seems like the odd woman out in this nerdy man's world of comics and sci-fi. Conversely, the most inspired choice is John Linnell of the rock band They Might Be Giants. Lethem himself maintains the audiobook's high standard and performs his prose with a sensitivity that's sweet but never cloying. Overall, this is a satisfying, and sometimes surprising, audio collection. Simultaneous release with the Doubleday hardcover (Forecasts, Oct. 25). (Nov. 2) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.