Summary: The Fortress Of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem. (Courtesy of author) Jonathan Lethem's The Fortress Of Solitude is a coming-of-age saga that follows two teenage friends, Dylan Ebdus and Mingus Rude, as they navigate adolescence, racial tensions and reality in 1970s Brooklyn. Partially an autobiographical story of Lethem's own childhood, the acclaimed 2003 novel explores New York music culture and is packed with references to Lou Reed, The Sugarhill Gang and Brian Eno. Lethem even made a mixtape to accompany the book. The saturation of sound in the novel caught the attention of theater director Daniel Aukin, who worked with Michael Friedman -- best known composing the 2010 musical Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson -- to produce a musical adaptation of the book. The show is now running at the Public Theater in New York and has just been extended through Nov. 16. In a conversation with Soundcheck host John Schaefer, Jonathan Lethem talks about the book's adaptation, working with Friedman on the musical tone and whether the story has changed after being translated for the stage. Interview Highlights Jonathan Lethem, on being approached to do a musical for The Fortress Of Solitude: It’s the very definition of a left-field moment for me. I don’t identify with musicals the way I do with narrative film. There’s a lot of storytelling forms I respond to natively. I grew up with comics, movies and novels. What I know of musicals in my DNA comes from watching West Side Story or Wizard Of Oz on TV. The musical was a subset of my film interests. I’ve probably seen seven or eight stage musicals in my life before the director, Daniel Aukin, proposed it. I was so disconcerted but I also really liked Daniel. I was at a high water mark at the film options. It took me a while to gain confidence that it was a good idea, but I knew right away it was a diverting one. On working with Michael Friedman: Of course the mixtape didn't sound like theater music, it didn’t sound like cast recording of Pippin or something. The best case that Daniel could make was that this book was saturated with sound. That’s why it was calling out to him. The next thing he did was bring Michael Friedman. He was not a meteor in the sky like he is now, it was before Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. I think a lot of people thought he was brilliant but I didn’t know his name. He talked about the midpoint between pop music style and theater. That’s when I started to climb aboard. On using Brian Eno's “Golden Hours”: This song is quite a literal connection; it’s cited on the last page. It’s playing as one of the boys and his father are driving through the snow. It becomes pregnant with a sad strange feeling that pervades the end of that book. It’s kind of a non-ending ending. The song relates to a time in my life when listening to that seemed to suggest another world, a mystery that was unsolvable but I wanted to dwell and abide with. On Syl Johnson's song “Is It Because I’m Black”: Race is one of the big themes of the book. It was as much of a talisman song for the writing of this book as it could be. This guy was doing brilliantly sung but second rate soul songs. But then he barrels this crazy manifesto about “Why am I stuck in life.” It’s way too long for radio and it’s so on the nose. One of the things I knew writing, I had to go at the heart of the song and be unembarrassed. This book is very much saying the unsayable right out, and then working with everyone’s embarrassment that you’ve said it. Like me saying, “Yeah, I was the white kid growing up in a black neighborhood and it was really uncomfortable” and just laying stuff out there. And of course simply the emotional power of the song.
