Manhood for Amateurs

by Michael Chabon Narrated by Michael Chabon

Overview

“Chabon has always been a magical prose stylist, adept at combining the sort of social and emotional detail found in Philip Roth's Goodbye, Columbus stories with the metaphor-rich descriptions of John Updike and John Irving's inventive sleight of hand. . . . As in his novels, he shifts gears easily between the comic and the melancholy, the whimsical and the serious, demonstrating once again his ability to write about the big subjects of love and memory and regret without falling prey to the Scylla and Charybdis of cynicism and sentimentality.”
- Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

“Wondrous, wise and beautiful.”
- David Kamp, New York Times Book Review

The bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Werewolves in Their Youth, Wonderboys, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and The Yiddish Policemen's Union Michael Chabon “takes [his] brutally observant, unfailingly honest, marvelously human gaze and turns it on his own life” (Time) in the New York Times bestselling memoir Manhood for Amateurs.

Editorial Reviews

A few years ago, Entertainment Weekly painted a word picture of married novelists Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman working back-to-back at opposite desks in a backyard writing cottage that smells of Spanish cedar, "a famous-and famously in love-writing pair like Nick and Nora Charles with word processors and not so much booze." That idyllic image doubtless sold books (and magazines), but the truth, of course, is much more complicated. During his hectic career, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and Kavalier & Clay has survived one divorce, several critical controversies, a major novel mishap, and several encounters with Hollywood. In Manhood for Amateurs, he revisits the particulars of his experiences, including generous portions of both pleasure and regret.

David Kamp

A lot of Dad Lit makes me cringe, and, worse, makes me think less of writers I'd previously admired…So it's a relief to say that Manhood for Amateurs isn't really Dad Lit, at least not in the Xtreme sense that its user's-manual-like handle indicates. While it bears some of the hallmarks of the genre…the book is a closer relation to Joan Didion's White Album. That is to say, it's not a chronicle, but rather a vaguely themed collection of thoughtful first-person essays…that capture a certain time and mood. The theme: maleness in its various states—boyhood, manhood, fatherhood, brotherhood. The time: now, juxtaposed frequently with Chabon's 1970s childhood. The mood: wistful…Ultimately, what makes this collection so melancholically pleasurable is not the modern-dad stuff but Chabon's ready and vivid access to his own childhood.
—The New York Times Book Review

Michiko Kakutani

…for the most part in these pages [Chabon] manages to write about himself, his family and his generation with humor and introspective wisdom. As in his novels, he shifts gears easily between the comic and the melancholy, the whimsical and the serious, demonstrating once again his ability to write about the big subjects of love and memory and regret without falling prey to the Scylla and Charybdis of cynicism and sentimentality.
—The New York Times

Publishers Weekly

Chabon delivers a polished, subtle, and enjoyable rendition of his first major work of nonfiction. In plumbing his own experiences as husband and father of four to explore masculinity in all its messiness and promise, Chabon offers a powerful paean to family life. Whether describing his boyhood, his years of dedicated marijuana smoking, the evolution of comic book heroines, his children’s art projects, his marriage, or his career, Chabon is a relaxed and likable reader: his nuanced narration enhances his prose and offers the listener a window into his inner life that deepens the potency and meaning of these essays. Reflective but never indulgent, emotional but never sentimental, and philosophical while remaining funny to the core, this is richly rewarding listening. A Harper hardcover (Reviews, July 20). (Nov.)

Library Journal

In his second essay collection, following Maps and Legends (2008), justifiably acclaimed Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Chabon (www.michaelchabon.com) ponders such topics as childhood, sex, love, marriage, divorce, fatherhood, feminism, baseball, comic books, and mortality. Generally, Chabon's comments on popular culture are more interesting and revealing than those involving his private life. His slightly nasal voice and unpolished reading take some getting used to, but his enthusiasm is infectious, as with his joyous account of his children's devotion to Doctor Who. Recommended for Chabon's fans, appreciators of popular culture, and those (especially males) who grew up in the 1970s. [The Harper hc received a starred review, LJ 8/09.—Ed.]—Michael Adams, CUNY Graduate Ctr. Lib.

Kirkus Reviews

A charming collection of autobiographical essays-on childhood, parenthood and lifelong geekhood-from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist. In modern classics like The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000) and The Yiddish Policemen's Union (2007), Chabon (Gentlemen of the Road, 2007, etc.) gave genre writing literary heft, and he does much the same here. His material is the stuff of folksy, small-town newspaper columns, but he applies an unusual level of wit and candor to the form. In his essay on Legos, he drills deep into the tactile pleasures they provided him as a child and the frustrations that their current complex, imagination-killing designs give him as a parent. Writing about cooking, he patiently runs through the details of the first crumb cake he successfully baked as a nine-year-old. "A Woman of Valor" looks at Big Barda, a little-loved comic-book superheroine. It's a sharp essay on the definition of sincerely powerful women and why they rarely appear in pop culture. Chabon's tone is nostalgic, funny and self-deprecating, though the memories are often bittersweet: the strange, brief fling he had with a friend of his mother's when he was 15, bad experiences with women his own age, a botched first marriage, a drug-addicted acquaintance slipping away from his efforts to help. Chabon discusses life as a writer only glancingly. He briefly notes, for instance, his struggle to create an authentic female character in Kavalier & Clay-eventually gutting 400 pages of effort-within the context of misogyny in pop culture, and mentions David Foster Wallace's suicide only as a launchpad for an essay on his wife's bout with depression. Even his defense of MFAs says more about theemotional maturity he received pursuing the degree than anything about craft. Only once, in a forced bit of punditry about Jose Canseco and steroids, is he off his game. He'd much rather discuss sharing Doctor Who with his kids, and he's clearly having so much fun being a dad-and thinking about what it means to be a dad-that it's a wonder he has time to create such excellent novels. Wry and heartfelt, Chabon's riffs uncover brand-new insights in even the most quotidian subjects.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170413621
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	10/06/2009
Edition description:	Unabridged

Videos