“Motherless Brooklyn” by Jonathan Lethem (post 3): Protagonist’s Tourette’s, unlike the real thing, involves an alternate personality

As Lethem has said (see previous post), his protagonist’s Tourette Syndrome (of muscular and vocal tics) was intended to express certain aspects of Lethem’s creative process.

And since Lethem did research on real Tourette’s, then anything attributed to his protagonist’s Tourette’s, but which is not true of real Tourette’s, would be true of Lethem.

In real Tourette’s, the person experiences an intense urge, analogous to an intense itch, for which the tic is like a good scratch. In real Tourette’s, the urge to say or do something is not prompted by a “Tourette’s self” or an “invisible companion,” and it is not “intentional” (which would imply some person-like intelligence who had the intention).

So since the following is not true of real Tourette’s, it must, in some sense, be true of Lethem:

“Not now, I begged my Tourette’s self. Think about it later” (1, p. 22).

“…an invisible companion named Billy or Bailey was begging for insults I found it harder and harder to withhold…and I couldn’t let anyone else or myself know how intentional my craziness felt” (1, pp. 46-47).

A “Tourette’s self,” an “invisible companion,” and a secret “intentional” intelligence are euphemisms for an alternate personality.

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