Dissident Gardens by Jonathan Lethem
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Life of the Mind in Queens

Bet you didn't know there was a Jewish socialist commune established by the federal government in the middle of New Jersey in the 1930's. I sure didn't. Or that Sunnyside in Queens was created as a model community. Or that Abraham Lincoln declared that "Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not existed first. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much higher consideration..." This was his Message to Congress, on December 1861, six years before Das Kapital.

These are strong enough hooks to get me into Lethem's latest creation of New York lit. I can't help it: I devour everything he produces. It could be that he provides plausible explanations for how we got to where we are - emotionally as well as politically. Or it could be that his use of specific locations gives them, and therefore one's memories of them, some significance never before recognised. No matter, just as long as he keeps pumping out more outer-borough stuff.

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