The 10 Best Books of 2009
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-12-10 10:47
 |
Large Medium Small |
CHRONIC CITY
By Jonathan Lethem
Doubleday, $27.95.
Lethem’s eighth novel unfolds in an alternative-reality Manhattan. The crowded canvas includes a wantonly destructive escaped tiger (or is it a subway excavator?) prowling the streets, a cruel gray fog engulfing Wall Street, a “war free” edition of The New York Times, a character stranded on the dying International Space Station, strange and valuable vaselike objects called chaldrons, colossal cheeseburgers and some extremely potent marijuana.