44 pages • 1 hour read
Jonathan LethemA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
It is weeks later. Gilbert has been released with all charges dropped. The three remaining Minna Men now work the office. L&L is now officially a detective agency, although they have no clients yet.
Days after Lionel returned to Brooklyn, Gerard mysteriously disappeared. Although losing its Roshi, the Zendo remained open even as its clientele dwindled. Lionel acknowledges that the operators behind all the mayhem—the shadowy Fujisaki Corporation and the Brooklyn wiseguys—will never face charges. Haunted by memories of her cryptic half-smile, Lionel arranges to me Kimmery at a coffee shop: “I suppose I still had the faint notion that could be together” (308). However, Kimmery tells Lionel that she has returned to an ex-lover: “So that thing that happened with us, it was just, you know—a thing” (309). Under his breath, Lionel says, “Okayokayokayokayokay,” the repetition as much a manifestation of his Tourette’s tics as his affirmation that she will never be his.
In the end, Lionel never contacts Julia. He is at peace, beyond guilt for his part in the deaths of Ullman, Tony, and Gerard. He remains alone, yet strong.
With the opening of the novel’s last chapter, the narrative provides insight into Lionel’s newfound calm: “Then somewhere, sometime, a circuit closed” (304). This demonstrates the peace that has come from his embrace of Kimmery’s sense of a universe wider than right and wrong, a universe the embraces rather than resolves mystery. Indeed, the narrative here is uninterrupted by Lionel’s Tourette’s riffs. He tells us of the uselessness of the criminal justice system, that the real criminal forces will never answer for their criminal behavior, that organized crime will maintain its respectability and its position. However, the realization does not ignite Lionel’s usual ranting sputters.
Lionel departs the narrative hip, cool, alone, detached, the epitome of the hard-boiled detective. Lionel’s hard-earned position as a clear-eyed observer of a universe leaves him as the ultimate outsider. Kimmery will not return to him, and Julia is lost to him.
In the end, Lionel is the same yet radically different. We see how much he has evolved from his time in the orphanage, where he was alone yet scared and unsure of himself. Now, en route to JFK airport, he savors a chicken shawarma sandwich, relishing its grilled peppers, onion, and tahini. The sandwich, he says, could provide “redemption for a whole soulless airport” (311). That sandwich then is one final koan for us, to signal that Lionel’s own soul has been redeemed, that he is at peace now that he understands that he understands nothing.
By Jonathan Lethem