Dear Jonathan Lethem,

It’s never a good thing when you finish a book and your first thought as you close that back cover is, “that’s total bullshit.”

But Jonathan, I am sorry to tell you that You Don’t Love Me Yet is kind of total bullshit. There were glimpses of brilliance in the bullshit. That sex scene between Lucinda and Carl was H-O-T. It inspired me, ifyouknowwhati’msaying.

I thought I had read somewhere that this was a novel you started years ago and just finally got around to finishing. I might be making that up. But if I am making it up, you should start adopting this line, because You Don’t Love Me Yet feels very much like a first novel.

It’s not just that the story lacked that certain je ne sais quois, or a point, but the characters were flat and underdeveloped. Lucinda, your main character, was horrible. I just never got a feel for her or felt comfortable in her skin. She didn’t seem real. She seemed to fly around the novel without any will or desire. I know this is a workshop cliche, but what did Lucinda want? I couldn’t tell, so when bad things happened to her I wasn’t so sure how bad they really were to her, because she didn’t seem too invested in anything she did.

Plus, and maybe this is because I’m a midwesterner and not from a coast, do people at the age of 29 really still hold onto their rock start daydreams so tightly that they’re willing to work retail and in coffee shops to stay true to their rock and roll? Even if they’ve never actually played a real gig? All the characters felt like they were about 22, so the drama seemed like lame twentysomething trumped-up drama. We all remember how life was much louder and more important when we were in our early twenties.

Can we talk a moment about the ending? Because come on Jonathan, you are better than the ‘and they all lived happily ever after.’ You are. And even worse than that ever after bullshit was the fact that you totally copped out on showing us how they got to the ever after part. I’m calling shenanigans on that.

However, Jonathan, I have to tell you before I sign off that I loved Motherless Brooklyn so much that I’m still gonna go back and read your back catalog. Much like Rod Stewart should be forgiven all musical crimes for giving the world “Maggie May,” you should be forgiven everything for giving the world Motherless Brooklyn.

Thank you for that.

Love,
Jodi