How Long Is “Lethem”?

A portrait of the life and work of Jonathan Lethem, featuring those who have impacted the writer’s life, from his oldest friend, Michael Seidenberg, a bookseller whose bookshops were stocked with books that he would rather not sell; his younger brother Blake, a legendary graffiti writer; his father, Richard Brown Lethem, a well known painter; and his good friend Hampton Fancher, the past and future screenwriter of the Blade Runner films. Using both the urban landscapes of New York and images of the American road from Maine to California as visual correlatives for Lethem’s books, the film suggests the array of cultural influences that inform the author’s life and work.