Michael Chabon is one of a couple of living authors whose words -- any words -- I fall upon with glee. Right now I'm working my way slowly through Manhood for Amateurs. Slowly both because these essays are so good that I don't want them to end and because they do also blend into one another, the most recently finished tending to obscure earlier ones.

The most recently finished, right now, is The Hand on My Shoulder and, oh boy, can I relate.1 Not in the detail; my own first father-in-law wouldn't have been seen dead near either a golf club or a C.C. & soda. Just in the general background and the ways in which Chabon articulates why he feels the way he does, maybe even why he does the things he does.

He's writing about himself, of course, but he's speaking to me.


  1. Oh bliss, it just so happens to be freely available

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