during a drug robbery. Robert ends up in prison with Mingus. When Dylan visits the two in prison, Mingus persuades him to offer the ring to Robert to help Robert escape. However, Robert's attempt at a flight escape ends in his demise. Mingus Rude – son of Barrett Rude Jr. and childhood friend of Dylan Ebdus. One of the most prominent characters in the novel. He moves to Dean Street after Dylan does, and the two quickly become friends. Their friendship evolves over the course of the first part of the novel. Rachel Ebdus – mother of Dylan Ebdus and is a character of the book who, in the beginning is mentioned very little, but is a big part of Dylan Ebdus's world. Literary style Stylistically, the two main parts of the novel are written as a) a third-person narrative ("Underberg" - part one) and b) a first-person narrative ("Prisonaires" - part three) with distinctive dialogue, though toward the very end of the book dialogue-intensive scenes and the brief entry of "Liner Notes" (part two) by Dylan are introduced to mirror his alienation from society. Since the work covers Dylan's life from the time he was a child to his growing independence and moral detachment from Brooklyn as a young man, the style of the work progresses through each of its thirty-four chapters, with the complexity of language gradually increasing. However, throughout the work, slang and music are used to portray indirectly the state of mind of the protagonist, and the subjective impact of the events of his life. Through the use of these sly literary devices Lethem intends to capture the subjective experience through music, rather than to present the actual experience through prose narrative. Awards and nominations The Fortress of Solitude was nominated for the 2005 International Dublin Literary Award. Adaptations A musical adaption conceived of and directed by Daniel Aukin with music and lyrics by Michael Friedman and book by Itamar Moses was produced by New York Stage and Film and Vassar College's Powerhouse Theatre in the summer of 2012. It received an Off-Broadway production by New York Public Works in 2015. The world's premiere of the stage version was on March 13, 2014, at the Dallas Theater Center. Publication history 2003, United States, Doubleday , pub date 16 September 2003, hardcover References External links "The Fortress of Solitude", "The Fortress of Solitude" September 2003 "The Fortress