Lethem’s ‘Chronic City’ smartly written

  Let’s get this out of the way first: “Chronic City” by Jonathan Lethem is definitely not for everyone.
  If you don’t like reading about the lives of struggling New York City socialites who like to go to dinner parties and hang around hot spots (and have some romantic flings on the side), you might be better off sticking to the memoirs of Sarah Palin and Andre Agassi.
  “Chronic City” doesn’t have much of a plot but who cares? In his new novel, Lethem has taken a sharp snapshot of the lives of several uncanny characters trying to survive a wintry Manhattan. The smartly written story has some chills, some laughs and some irreverent moments. There is sadness, and there are a few surprises at the end (although they don’t feel like surprises since they take place in a city where surprises occur every minute). Death, politics and friendships are some of the  themes found in “Chronic City.”
  The story centers around two Bohemian friends: Chase Insteadman and Perkus Tooth. Insteadman lives off the residuals earned when he was a child star on the fictional 1970s sitcom “Martyr & Pesty,” which is in syndication and airs repeatedly on TV Land. Tooth is a freelance cultural critic who believes in large conspiracies and has a strong appetite for big hamburgers and dope.
  Insteadman’s teenage sweetheart and fiancee, Janice Trumbull, is an astronaut aboard the International Space Station. But the station is trapped in space, because the Chinese have released a bunch of low-orbit satellite mines. Insteadman calls her “my astro-fiancee … trapped behind her thin steel-and-tile skin against the unfathomable keening void.” Suddenly, Trumbull is diagnosed with cancer and can’t make it back to Earth. She faces amputation of her foot — and maybe worse.
  The slender, seductive Oona Laszlo enters Insteadman’s life, and they begin a heated romance. Laszlo is a ghostwriter who has “become a specialist in traumatized athletes, frostbitten Everest climbers who have to wear plastic noses, etcetera, a narrow field she dominates. She fully knows it’s (junk),” says Tooth. He is involved with Laszlo too, and the web of intercity relationships only gets more entangled.
  Also, there are other characters, notably Richard Abneg, who works for the billionaire mayor (a fictitious Michael Bloomberg?) and has plenty of ambition. They get involved in a few mysteries that have some disturbing results. Don’t expect easy or simple solutions. Of course, life in “Chronic City” is never easy or simple.