The Nature of Things

Michael Chabon just gets better and better as a writer. While I can't claim to have read everything that he's written, each book of his that I have read has been better than the last. Moonglow is the best one yet and it's hard to see how he can improve with the next one. This book takes the form of a family memoir and it seems to have been at least loosely based on Chabon's own family, although he assures us that it is, in fact, entirely fictional. But the third person narrator of the book is named Mike Chabon and the stories that he tells us were told to him by his grandfather as he lay dying. In 1989, Mike traveled to his mother's house in Oakland to be with his terminally ill grandfather. Over ten days at the very end of his life, the grandfather told his grandson stories of his eventful life. This was a unique experience in a family known for its silences. Mike said that 90% of what he knew about his grandfather was learned in those ten days. The grandfather...

(Note: This summer I'm featuring some of my old book reviews that have not been posted here before. This is a book that I read in March 2009 and my review of it was published on Goodreads on March 4, 2009. Although I read it in winter, it would be a good - and quick - read for summer.) Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon My rating: 4 of 5 stars It is circa 950 C.E. in the Caucasus Mountains area, the Khazar Empire.  Zelikman, the Frankish scarecrow of a man, and Amram, the Abyssinian former soldier, both Jews and brothers under the skin, make their way in the area by serving as blades for hire, thieves, bamboozlers - whatever happens to come their way.  They are, in fact, Gentlemen of the Road or, as Chabon says he first titled the work, "Jews with Swords." This is a short novel full of Chabon's trademark sardonic style of writing.  I had previously read The Yiddish Policemen's Union and thoroughly enjoyed it and I was anxious to try out his latest work.  I...

I have admired and enjoyed the writing in two earlier books by Michael Chabon that I have read -  The Yiddish Policemen's Union  and  Gentlemen of the Road . I've never gotten around to reading what is supposedly his best book, the Pulitzer Prize-winning  The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay , but I will one day. I had high hopes for  Telegraph Avenue  as well, but I have to say I was a little bit disappointed in it. It was a difficult read for me. Reading the book was a chore mainly I think because so many of the musical references were unfamiliar to me. I think I got the gist of their meaning in most instances, but not without more work than I like to do when I'm reading for pleasure. The action of the book takes place in Oakland, California, and has its roots in the Oakland of the 1970s during the heyday of the Black Panther movement and of blaxploitation films. I am old enough to remember those days and the cultural vibe of the period, but, as fo...