New York – do you give me the chewing gum or the house?

Brooklyn was the defining topic for Jonathan Lethem for a long time. Born in 1964, he grew up there at a time when the New York district was still dangerous and was trimmed. Today there is a gentrified hipster district with organic stores on every street corner, which is praised as a great experience in every New York travel guide.

Already in his neo-noir thriller “Motherless Brooklyn” (1999), Lethem told about a private detective with Tourette syndrome, who has to fight for his credibility in the streets of Brooklyn. And his, heavily autobiographical novel “Fortress of Loneliness”, which was published in 2004, is about a white youth who was forced to assert himself on the street in Brooklyn in the late 1970s, and thus fails regularly – until he experiences and exemption as a young punk through Manhattan. This 700-page novel, which tells of urban subculture, the emergence of rap music in schoolyards and left-wing artists between Street Creditity and Racism, was rightly celebrated by the criticism.

Lethem was considered one of the most important young authors in the United States 20 years ago and was happy to be called by critics in the breath of Don Delillo. The other important Brooklyn author of those years, Colson Whitehead, who now floats in literary prices and became an extraordinary chronicler of the Black York, was a rather marginal figure at the time.

Now Lethem, which had become a bit quieter in recent years, has once again written a brick -thick book about his district, which motivates directly to “fortress of loneliness”. “The Brooklyn case” is rejoiced as a novel, but is more of a collection of over 120 literary vignettes, some of which report almost report -like, but also essayistically about life in the district from the 1960s to the present day.

The focus is on young people from Dean Street, where Lethem grew up and his novel “Fortress of Loneliness” is located. It is primarily about the role of the left, subcultural -shaped white families who moved to these dilapidated neighborhoods. Were these removals of the white educational citizenship to an area, which was then dominated by Black and Puerto Ricanians, a piece of cultural imperialism, almost lying the foundation stone for the subsequent gentrification?

The white parents were involved in the neighborhoods, but often stayed among themselves in their own cultural and social bubble. For their children, life in the district often meant a gauntlet run. Lethem calls the “dance” that was performed when the better (white) adolescents have been decreased by older black young people from time to time, be it a piece of pizza, chewing gum or a little change. The dollar hidden in the socks, which the parents finally gave in order to “buy free” in the case of the case, became an integral part of a social order.

But who is something taken away here? Who is something suitable? Do the white parents take entire properties and streets? And the black kids a piece of pizza or some change? Settings keeps these questions accordingly and comes up with dramaturgically composed answers, which he dismissed with Brooklyner anecdotes like a bouquet of flowers.

It is about rebeling young people, but in various social spheres. In a non -fiction -like section, Lethem also deals with dangerous black adolescents in the media. Statistically speaking, he knows how to report, there was much less crime from 1973 to 1981 of non -white young people than before. Instead, they were increasingly victims of crimes by white teenagers. But there are hardly any real crimes on these 450 pages anyway, although two stories go terrible at the end.

In addition to this comparison of supposedly felt events with the social reality, Lethem tells of the families who bought living space in the quarter. The Brownstones, the historic sandstone residential houses, for which Brooklyn is famous, became coveted real estate that have experienced increases since then. The hippies from back then became millionaires. The Dean Street in the middle of the so popular and hip district of Boerum Hill in Brooklyn became a paradigm of real estate and cultural upgrading. “You have gentrified the gentrification,” says a resident of Brooklyn, an aging author exaggerates when he visits his old homeland, about which he wrote a book.

The figures of Lethem have no names, at most one letter as an abbreviation, or are named according to properties. There is the “scream” who is constantly at the window and roars outside. Or the “chatter” who hangs around in a pub and knows everything better. The “millionaire” is a white one with chops and an always drunk artist as a wife who simply parks his output BMW in front of the door in Dean Street, without it being damaged there for an unexpected reason.

With continuous reading, this book condenses into a large opus about Brooklyn, in which the development of all possible figures is told over the decades. A narrative style that is reminiscent of John Dos Passos’ famous novel “Manhattan Transfer” (1925). “The Brooklyn case” is not just the chronicle of a trendy district, but a novel about the social, cultural and political mechanisms of a big city that have not yet been told. Jonathan Lethem has succeeded in an extraordinary piece of literature, and an idiosyncratic and personal declaration of love for Brooklyn.

JONATHAN Lethem: the case Brooklyn. A. D. America. English. v. Thomas Gunkel. SwedT hardles, 448 s, and v, to 26 €.