The 100 Greatest Brooklynites of All Time: 60 to 51
Jonathan Lethem probably hates that we feel a little betrayed by his departure to the West Coast. And though he’s right to be irritated at how deeply identified he is as a “Brooklyn writer” in an era so lousy with outerborough writers (“Brooklyn is repulsive with novelists, it’s cancerous with novelists,” quoth Lethem), maybe he shouldn’t have written such great books with the borough itself as the main character. Even if he gets hit by a Segway at the Pomona mall tomorrow, Motherless Brooklyn and Fortress of Solitude will stand for generations as great Brooklyn books.