“Motherless Brooklyn” by Jonathan Lethem (post 6): Protagonist does not see Bailey, but the latter has the virtual reality of an alternate personality

At the beginning of this novel, the protagonist and first-person narrator, Lionel Essrog, hopes to see his “invisible companion named Billy or Bailey” (1, p. 46).

Two hundred pages later, he still wants to know, “Who was Bailey anyway?” (1, p. 246).

And on the last page, “Bailey” remains someone “I never happened to meet” (1, p. 311).

Note: On that last page, Lionel compares Bailey to Ullman, a real person in the story whom Lionel had also never seen. By comparing Bailey to Ullman, Lionel is making the point that Bailey is real, too.

Nevertheless, Lionel never expects anyone else to ever meet Bailey, because Lionel knows that Bailey is not real to other people. Lionel is in touch with objective reality. Multiple personality is not a psychosis.

In Motherless Brooklyn, as in most novels, the issue of multiple personality, per se, is unacknowledged, probably because it is one mystery that the novelist has not yet solved.

1. Jonathan Lethem. Motherless Brooklyn. New York, Doubleday, 1999.