{"product_id":"9781838952211","title":"Brooklyn Crime Novel by Jonathan Lethem","description":"1978 and two 14-year-old white  boys are creating dubious art by using  a hacksaw to cut multiple quarters into  pieces. A child who's just bought ice cream  from a Mr. Softee truck witnesses a daylight  sidewalk shooting in 1979. At another time,  a couple of blocks over, a kid gets caught  trying to shoplift an adult magazine from  a Puerto Rican hole-in-the-wall. A Black  teenager and his white friends square up  to a rival Italian gang over the right to play  hockey in the street. In 1977 a white kid  craters a baseball right in the centre of a  Cuban guy's windscreen. And so it goes. On the streets of Brooklyn, the faces of the  children change but the patterns remain  the same: sex; boredom; friendship;  violence; a million daily crimes committed,  some small, some unimaginably big.  But the real action is away from the  streets, played out behind closed doors  by parents; cops; renovators; landlords;  gentrifiers; those who write the headlines,  the histories, and the laws; those who  award this neighbourhood its name and  control its shifting demographics. Across  the decades, buildings are developed and  homes are razed; communities come in  and muscle other communities out; the  past haunts the present and perspectives  change, so that perpetrators sometimes  become victims, and victims sometimes  become the worst criminals of all...  Written with kaleidoscopic verve and  delirious wit, Brooklyn Crime Novel is a  breathtaking tour de force of a quarter  of a city and the humanity it contains, and  an epic interrogation of how we fashion  stories to contain the uncontainable: our  remorse at the world we've made\u003cbr\u003eBinding: Paperback \/ softback","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44581838422194,"sku":"9781838952211","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781838952211.jpg?v=1737625805","url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/products\/9781838952211","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}