Book Review: You Don’t Love Me Yet by Jonathan Lethem - Page 2

As even this brief sketch indicates, the characters are fresh and original. Even the minor players – a glib monomaniac on the complaint line, a trend-setting local deejay, an impresario who likes to sniff ladies’ underarms – are ingeniously crafted with Lethem’s predilection for implausible details and spicy dialogue. These engaging figures spout off aphorisms such as “all thinking is wishful” or “you can’t be deep without a surface.” In short, all the clever things you wish you could come up with on a first date, spring spontaneously to the lips of Lethem’s characters.

Music has figured prominently in Lethem’s fiction since Gun with Occasional Music. In one of its zanier moments, The Fortress of Solitude included a lengthy essay on '70s soul music – stylishly written in the manner of an accompanying essay to a CD box set –which only tangentially related to the plot, but artfully developed several of the themes of the novel. And just last year, Lethem published a lengthy interview with Bob Dylan in Rolling Stone. If anyone is destined to write the Great Rock Novel, why not Jonathan Lethem?

But You Don’t Love Me Yet is not that masterpiece, and fails to reach the heights Lethem achieved in his two previous novels. The plot never coheres, and the individual band members each seem lost in their own private fantasy world. They make for a fascinating police line-up, but we never get a sufficient read on the motivations and aspirations that bring a story to life. Who would have thought it possible, but Lethem, who made his name with his compelling protagonists, has written a novel without a plausible hero.

Article Author: Ted Gioia

Ted Gioia is a writer and musician. He is the author of Delta Blues, The History of Jazz and, most recently, The Birth (and Death) of the Cool.

Visit Ted Gioia's author page — Ted Gioia's Blog