Michael Chabon

Probably my favourite book of all the fiction I read that year.

I enjoy a good film noir detective story and this starts out just like so many of the best: our protagonist (Is he a hero? He's the best we'll get) wakes hung-over and miserable in his room at the fleapit hotel, to find his neighbour is dead and now that's his problem to solve. So much, so Sam Spade. But now we find this West Coast isn't LA, it's Alaska - or rather the Federal District of Sitka, in an alternate timeline where show more this became a Jewish homeland and refuge from Europe. This isn't the Promised Land, it's the Land Grudgingly Loaned and now Uncle Sam wants it back.

It's the observed details that make this. Hebrew is a oddity kept for shul and the language of the streets is Yiddish, His partner is one of the few gentiles in town, being from the First Nations. And when there's no food, at least there's chess. Chabon never makes do with one word when he can fit a dozen in there. As much a mensch as his bedraggled and trampled hero.

I loved this. Unusually for fiction I'll probably read it again. show less

Ignoring the whole marketing of this book as a novelised biography that tries to have the cake of Based on a True Story and eating it with extra flourishes of creamy embellishments too, this is a great yarn that is excellently told.

It's exactly like a story that's been rehearsed and practised and passed down the generations: well-refined, glibly passing over distracting details, introducing half-true garnishes that melt over time into something unrecognisable from the original.

Other than show more target="_top">Kavalier & Clay, Chabon's fiction has not been my cup of tea. Everything is always laden with metaphors that my mind would splutter and drown in the thick treacle of descriptions before page 50.

But Moonglow captured my heart. There's a refreshing immediacy to the events. People can drink or wear clothes without either being compared to the deep unknown sea where the narrator would eventually be swallowed or the texture of sand as an exile in the desert (not actual examples). However there was still a troubling amount of bosomy descriptions for every woman.

There're three simultaneous time periods and yet they were never confusing thanks to Chabon's deft and steadying touch. I also enjoyed the gimmick of the characters being referred to as "my grandfather" or "my mother" instead of by name. Instead of keeping the reader at a remove, it added a stabilising element to the events, tying the characters to their future and the narrator. There are satisfying resolutions to events and gaspworthy twists that if you treat them as real would require a more sombre examination. I'd be glad to sit gather round a fireside for this serialised family tale.

Aside: I'm not sure how much connection this cover has to the content but I'd love for the matchheads to be like the spine of that edition of Fahrenheit451. show less

This book fits so nicely in the oeuvre of mid-80s urban 20-something stories like Alice K's Guide to the Life (Boston) and A Girl in Love With Her Clothes (NYC). Told from the point of view of a young man, Art, recently finished from college and contemplating his future, Mysteries shows an accurate portrayal of the confusion and excitement that comes with exploring familial expectations, personal histories, and social/sexual desires.

Considered somewhat groundbreaking (at the time) for its show more depiction of homosexuality and bi-sexuality, in today's light I would say this is less of a "coming out" story as it is one about making decisions, and the avoidance of making decisions, about the path of one's life. Whether it's sexual, personal expression, creative, social, professional... the early 20s are the time that many experience a barrage of personal choices. Some hit each mark with a seeming overabundance of ease, while others, like Art, struggle on all fronts. But, it's a struggle almost all can relate to, even if our 20s are many decades removed.

Oh yes, it's also quite lovely to read a story with nary a mention of cell phones, the internet, and Facebook. Can you remember what that was like? :-) show less

In Chabon's alternate history, the Jewish country of Israel doesn't exist, and Jewish refugees escaping from the Holocaust are granted the safety and autonomy of a strip of Alaska. Now 60 years later, the Jewish land of Sitka is about to revert back to the United States. That's the background against which a Jewish policeman, living in a fleabag hotel, ends up investigating the murder of another tenant of the hotel.

Still reeling from his divorce a couple of years earlier the more recent show more death of his sister, and faced with an uncertain future after the reversion, Meyer Landsman is a mess, but he's a good detective, determined to find the killer, even if it means disobeying a direct order from his newly promoted ex-wife who is now his boss.

In prose full of metaphors and similies, Chabon takes Meyer and the reader into the part of Sitka where the Black Hats -- ultra Orthodox Jews -- live and oversee life in the district. The simple murder of a former chess prodigy/current drug addict is anything but simple. This is a fascinating look at what could have been, as well as a compelling story about a murder, grief, and a community determined to keep surviving all the obstacles put in their way. show less