Helpful Score: 1
Chronic City is your type of book if you liked the premise of the Matrix more than the visual effects. Chase Insteadman is a former child television star who is more relevant now for being the fiancé of an astronaut stranded in space. His leisurely Upper East Side existence is changed by unexpectedly meeting an eccentric pop culture critic named Perkus Tooth. Although parts of it can read like an only-in-New-York-City novel, soon one begins to see that it's an even more surreal Manhattan which Chase and Perkus inhabit. The plot drifts towards the ending, somewhat like the absent astronaut fiancée. Nonetheless, I enjoyed Lethem's mastery of prose and images in this homage to his hometown.
