1. Motherless Brooklyn, Jonathan Lethem

A private eye with Tourette’s Syndrome, raised in St. Vincent’s Home for Boys, is the narrator of this novel set in Brooklyn’s Boerum Hill in the late 1990s. Lionel Essrog, between involuntary exclamations, is determined to find out who killed his mob-affiliated mentor and boss, Frank Minna. Lethem’s many New York City novels all manage to capture the grit and wonder, the squalor and magic, of New York City in different ways. What Lethem conveys so perfectly in this one is how provincial life can be a world capital. Lionel has lived his entire life without leaving New York City, until the investigation takes him beyond the city limits.

Next, read 5 Authors Who Crafted Novels Around the Culture and Influence of NYC and 8 NYC Homes of Famous Writers from Truman Capote to Edith Wharton