Brownstones with Stories to Tell: Houses in Jonathan Lethem’s The Fortress of Solitude

Izabella Kimak

doi:10.18290/rh.2019.67.11-7

Izabella Kimak Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, Faculty of Humanities

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18290/rh.2019.67.11-7

Keywords: Jonathan Lethem; The Fortress of Solitude; gentrification; racism; houses

Abstract

This article constitutes an analysis of the depiction of houses in Jonathan Lethem’s 2003 novel The Fortress of Solitude, universally labeled a novel of gentrification. It is my contention that despite being criticized for its alleged celebration of the process the text nevertheless paints a more nuanced picture of gentrification. It does so through the depiction of houses—t he titular brownstones of this essay—that function both as a synecdoche for a larger neighborhood or community that they are situated in and as a reflection of the dynamics of the family units that occupy them.

References

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Coughlan, David. “Jonathan Lethem’s The Fortress of Solitude and Omega: The Unknown, a Comic Book Series.” College Literature, vol. 38, no. 3, 2011, pp. 194–218.

Godbey, Matt. “Gentrification, Authenticity and White Middle-Class Identity in Jonathan Lethem’s The Fortress of Solitude.” Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory, vol. 64, no. 1, 2008, pp. 131–151.

Lethem, Jonathan. The Fortress of Solitude. Vintage Books, 2003.

Sharma, Devika. “The Color of Prison: Shared Legacies in Walter Mosley’s The Man in My Basement and Jonathan Lethem’s The Fortress of Solitude.” Callaloo, vol. 37, no.3, 2014, pp. 662–675.