The Fortress of Solitude

Set in Brooklyn across the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, Jonathan Lethem's semi-autobiographical novel follows Dylan Ebdus, a white, motherless boy in a neighborhood that is almost entirely black, and his friend Mingus Rude, who has also lost his mother. Because Dylan is white, their friendship is not simple. Street games share the block with muggings and schoolyard extortion, and the two boys are obsessed with comic book heroes. Around them the novel takes in race and class, gentrification, funk and hip-hop, graffiti, punk and memory. Its title refers to Superman's fortress. Lethem, also the author of Motherless Brooklyn, saw the book adapted into a stage musical by Michael Friedman and Itamar Moses.

Bryan Callen, co-host of The Fighter and the Kid, included it in his Top Three Must Reads recommendations.