Men and Cartoons: Stories
"A strikingly original collection . . . imaginative, insightful, witty and sad."  --Milwaukee Journal Sentinel "An already dazzling writer shows us a new card. .  . .Men and Cartoonsends on a note that portends Lethem's most experimental turn  yet: toward human love as [a transporting] alternate universe. . . . Lethem in a  new, more nakedly personal key." --San Francisco Chronicle "Lethem is the man to  beat in fiction these days. . . . Every tale of ennui, cosmic regret and petty yearning  is perfectly realized. The brevity of the book and perfection of the stories puts  every other member of his generation to shame." --Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "Ineffably  poignant." --Time "His sheer inventiveness is a treat. . . . Affecting and clever,  these tales are standouts." --People "Terrific. . . . Lethem captures the world  we know and the one hovering just beyond our periphery." --The Baltimore Sun "A  pleasure. . . . These stories offer potent little distillations of Lethem's considerable  imagination." --Entertainment Weekly "Compelling. . . . Effective. . . . Intelligent  and poignant. . . . Strange, amusing, haunting. . . . Lethem has what musicians call  'chops,' or technical mastery. He can mix and match prose styles and literary genres  to create glittering fictional artifacts. . . . Each of these nine tales rewards  the reader in some way--through an insight, a scene or simply the force of the author's  imagination." --St. Petersburg Times "Bristling with familiarity. . . . Theme[s]  that resonate. . . . [Lethem is] adept at letting palpable human experiences emerge  from absurd, fantastical situations." --The San Diego Union-Tribune "Nuanced. .  . . Resonates with intense force." --Newsday "Laugh-out-loud funny tales of love,  flamboyance, and childhood memories." --Elle "Smart. . . . Original. . . . Memorable.  . . . Lethem is . . . [like] the Coen Brothers of fiction." --The Seattle Times "Men and Cartoonswill open up a vast new world to readers unfamiliar with Lethem's  oeuvre. . . . The entries are uniformly fine--each in its own way representative  of Lethem's mastery of whatever style he attempts." --Rocky Mountain News "Fantastic."  --Vanity Fair "Engaging. . . . A Lethem primer. . . . The characters ofMen and  Cartoonsneed their stories to be told." --The Village Voice "Jonathan Lethem spits  out genres like curse words--from sci-fi to pseudo-erotica to theepistolary. His  narrative psychosis is our disturbed enjoyment." --Genre Magazine "Wonderful. .  . . A collection of tales based in Brooklyn but permeated with fantasy [from] the  very talented Mr. Lethem." --The Hartford Courant "Lethem at his best. . . . [An]  appealing array of stories [that] exemplify Lethem's talents as a profoundly imaginative  writer." --Chattanooga Times Free Press