Moonglow

Michael Chabon pulls off a hybrid memoir and a contested fictional multigenerational family history peppered with anecdotes and stories from his heavily medicated grandfather on his deathbed Chabon unashamedly states its fictional roots and perhaps questions the concept of a factual memoir, how much of a memoir can be said to be true when peoples memories are notoriously unreliable Can a memoir be free from an agenda How much is the truth embellished to create a compelling life history How free [...]

Moonglow has been looked up 2315 times, is no one s favorite word yet, has been added to 3 lists, has 1 comment, and is not a valid SCRABBLE word Michael Chabon I love your classy name your books and your wonderful talented courageous wife author Ayelet Waldman So before I begin my review I have a few things to say local boy I own every physical book written by both Michael and Ayelet BAY AREA AUTHORS spotlight voices within the Jewish Community both bright adorable an inspiring married couple I [...]

4.5 stars Michael Charon has held a place in my literary heart ever since I read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier Clay and has insured that place with his latest book Chabon s inspiration for the book were the stories his grandfather told while he was on pain killers and close to death In his opening author s note, though he warns us that what we will soon be reading may not exactly be true In preparing this memoir, I have stuck to the facts, except when facts refused to conform with memory, n [...]

I see the hidden lovers, fates entangled like their bodies, waiting for release from the gravity that held them down all their lives Michael Chabon, MoonglowFantastic I needed to chew on this for a night, to stare at the moon, dream, and fantasize about what I really wanted to say and write my panegyric in a delicate space after the book First, I sometimes wonder if there is a genre Chabon can t master with his metaphors, his exuberance and his fantasy At this point, he could write a book center [...]

Memoir, fictional novel, exaggerations or just Chabon s musings, whichever way you choose to look at it, just know this book was written with a great deal of love It shines through in the writing.As his grandfather laid dying he shared stories of his life with his grandson Let me tell you this man lived many different lives, tried to kill his boss, blow up a bridge, spent time in prison, worked for the space program designing model rockets and loved and married a woman with mental difficulties T [...]

4.5 StarsChabon s Author s Note at the beginning of Moonglow this states In preparing this memoir, I have stuck to facts except when facts refused to conform with memory, narrative purpose, or the truth as I prefer to understand it Wherever liberties have been taken with names, dates, places, events, and conversations, or with the identities, motivations, and interrelationships of family members and historical personages, the reader is assured that they have been taken with due abandon.Moonglow [...]

Given the opportunity, and if I could work out the mechanics of it, I would do some things to Michael Chabon s prose, things that would make Ron Jeremy and Jenna Jameson blush Because that stuff is purty The hallmark of true greatness and let s call the requirements for greatness a combination of natural talent and aptitude, sweat equity, and single minded devotion to craft is making something exceedingly difficult look effortless a little bit like how I make it look so easy to poke yourself in [...]

Moonglow by Michael Chabon is a 2016 Harper publication I must admit, up front, that I ve never a book by this author That is not to say I don t have his books sitting on my shelves or loaded onto my Kindle, because I do However, I ve never managed to get around to reading them My library was really pushing this book recently, so I placed a hold on it Shockingly, few people were ahead of me, so I nabbed a copy almost immediately Having no idea what to expect, but hoping for something different a [...]

Just as you sense some authors haven t yet written their best book Zadie Smith you feel others have already written their masterpiece and no matter how many they write they will never quite top it Nicole Krauss with The History of Love springs to mind As does Chabon with The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier Clay I d be amazed if he ever tops that Moonglow doesn t but nevertheless it is a thrilling and highly distinguished achievement First of all, think of your own favourite grandfather and try t [...]

I started Moonglow last week on a park bench, outside of my daughters day camp, and by page 3, I knew, with total confidence, that as soon as I finished the book, I d be reading it again.By page 10, I was digging in my purse for my post it notes and my pen, refusing to avert my eyes from the page to do so, pen cap in my mouth, scrawling Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse 5, and is Chabon the Philip Roth of Philadelphia , and perhaps madness is caused by a person being unable to find their place in th [...]

Chabon s seventh novel was inspired by his maternal grandfather s deathbed confessions in 1989 or was it A tongue in cheek author s note refers to this as a memoir, and it s narrated by Mike Chabon, but he and Grandfather never named are characters here in the same way that Jonathan Safran Foer and his ancestors are in Everything Is Illuminated Space travel and explosives are Grandfather s lifelong obsessions The chronology moves back and forth seemingly haphazardly, as if we are hearing this st [...]

I m disappointed in myself In my life All my life, everything I tried, I only got halfway there You try to take advantage of the time you have That s what they tell you to do But when you re old, you look back and you see all you did with all that time is waste it All you have is a story of things you never started or couldn t finish Things you fought with all your heart to build that didn t last or fought with all your heart to get rid of and they re all still around I m ashamed of myself I m n [...]

Like so many others, Michael Chabon won me over with The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier Clay and this novel memoir looked to be infused with the same kinds of playfulness and seriousness The opening promise that the author had stuck to facts except when facts refused to conform to memory, narrative purpose or the truth as I prefer to understand it speaks so much to how we all construct our memories and especially the ways in which we relate them to others Bearing this in mind, the story about hi [...]

A Magnificent ChiaroscuroWe are as clouds that veil the midnight moon How restlessly they speed and gleam and quiver,Streaking the darkness radiantly yet soonNight closes round, and they are lost for ever Mutability, Percy Bysshe ShelleyMoonglow, Michael Chabon s brilliantly constructed narrative, documents the narrator s conversations with his dying grandfather that travel back and forth between the grandfather on his deathbed and the story he s giving of his past This construct accomplished tw [...]

This is my third book from Michael Chabon Chabon never writes the same book twice, and each book has been terrific in its own way His endlessly celebrated and one of my all time favourite novels The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier Clay trades comic book shtick with political and societal upheaval while building some of the most memorable character moments I ve ever read The Yiddish Policeman s Union, by contrast, is a gumshoe noir set in a fictional Jewish settlement in Alaska that could sit comf [...]

Moonglow is a wondrous book that celebrates the power of family bonds and the slipperiness of memory Chabon suggests that it was written as an act of rebellion against his upbringing Keeping secrets was the family business, he says, but it was a business that none of us ever profited from His courage to break that code of silence was inspired by stories his dying grandfather told him than 25 years ago His fetish for self reliance made him secretive, Chabon says, but their final meeting produced [...]

Every so often, there comes a book that is so heartbreakingly real and so stylistically accomplished that it makes you feel like you re never going to pick up another book again, because what would be the point Then there are those times when a book so sparks you with a love of narrative and of your fellow people, that you want to rush out and just smother yourself in stories Michael Chabon s latest is, somehow, both of these Easily my favourite book of the year.

Update great interview explaining the fiction powells post interview5 The girl s lips were painted red as Bicycle hearts and diamonds, and they parted to reveal an Ingrid Bergman smile to go with the sunglasses My grandfather heard a sound inside his head that he compared, years later, to the freight train rumble of an earthquake He felt he was standing in the path of something fast moving and gigantic that, in its blindness, was bound to carry him away Swept off his feet, he thought This is tha [...]

This is my first experience reading Michael Chabon It won t be the last This work has captivated me for the past week as I moved from story to story with Mike as his grandfather related the experiences of his lifetime The whole notion of a fictionalized autobiography left me rather cold before reading Moonglow Now I m a convertI believe that a truly skilled writer can inspire me, thrill me, using unexpected literary combinationscially when they are filled with the obvious love that Chabon brings [...]

Sometimes I finish a book, and I loved it, but I feel too puny a mind to say anything to do it justice I just am not learned enough, wise enough, deep enough I am at a loss for words.Moonglow by Michael Chabon sat on my Edelweiss shelf for 45 days until I could finally make a space to read it, read out of order , as I read based on a book s publication date I have enjoyed all the novels I ve read by Chabon The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, The Wonder Boys, and The Yiddish Policeman s Union I have The [...]

I started this one and then set it aside, uncertain if I felt like finishing it I lugged it to Balti with me, knowing I would likely not have time to read it, because some of it is set there This is a novel about family memory and legacy, and goes back and forth between a somewhat fictional Mike interviewing his grandfather on his death bed and scenes in the history of his grandfather s life Sometimes it feels like Gravity s Rainbow fanfic, especially all the V 2 bits And I m not sure that it is [...]

I don t know how it is that I ve never read anything by Michael Chabon I ve heard a lot about him, but this is my first experience of his writing I m very impressed Moonglow is a semi autobiographical story about a man spending time with his grandfather during the last days of his life He hears the stories told by his grandfather, and the information is amazing His family had always been one that didn t talk about feelings or acknowledge problems The narrator, Michael, has to come to terms with [...]

Chabon s skill on the line level, that cascade of perfect, idiosyncratic sentences, has never left him, but his iffy choices of subject matter over the last 15 years has rendered him somewhat invisible Though his Spiderman 2 is the secret high point of the superhero movie era This fade into the background of literature is the hazard of the mid career artist, but after reading his wonderful essay about his son at Paris fashion week gq story my son the pr , I pre ordered MOONGLOW.And the fake memo [...]

The powerful driving force of Chabon s new novel is the deathbed confessions of the narrator s grandfather Revealing the pains and surprises caused by secrets, lies, and war, Moonglow is a rich examination of a family history built on hidden truths, an emotional love story, and a fantastic work of autobiographical family history turned novel The novel is based on Chabon s own grandfather s stories Backlist bump Manhood for Amateurs The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son by Micha [...]

I ve adored and championed Michael Chabon s books since away back in the 80s, with Mysteries of Pittsburgh Like him, I m an intellectual Jew, born within a year of him, and with many of the same cultural references For years, he was to me what Phillip Roth was for my father a funhouse mirror of my times and fascinations, as well as a lens through which to freshly grasp history and world events Most of all, he was just plain fun to read Like, teary eyed, breathlessly fun.That peaked with The Amaz [...]

Said to be inspired by a stoic grandfather s sudden verbosity on his deathbed, Moonglow is fictionalized account of Chabon s family that focuses mainly on his maternal grandparents.Like Knausgaard s fictional memoirs, one is never sure where the truth starts or stops, and with that fiction label it really doesn t matter The story feels true however, and I found myself forgetting at times that at the very least it is truth exaggerated or significantly added upon.While there is a serious risk of n [...]

This is a heartwarming fictional biography, maybe, of Michael Chabon s grandfather, possibly.The title reflects it all moonglow is mirrored light, not an actual glowing of original inner light, gentle readerI can t decide if this book is a biographical fiction or a fictionalized biography Whatever It is a touching panagyric for a man who had a, to me, romantic life, despite that he obviously hated sentimentality and any florid display of false morality A World War II veteran, the main character, [...]

Video review youtube watch v PZ2VVFeatured in my Top 20 Books I Read in 2016 youtube watch v 4X6OQThe most Pynchonian of all Chabon s novels, but not in the overt, copycat manner you might imagine A beautiful exploration of the value and meaning of storytelling, and a heartbreaking tale made of several heartbreaking tales.

Earlier this year when I finished this book, I could not bring myself to write a review because I loved it that much Yes, I do tend to write a lot of reviews and blather on a bit about books I like or don t like , but when I truly love a book I am usually rendered speechless This was the case with Margaret Atwood s The Blind Assassin, in which words still fail me to fully capture its perfection in a simple review But, I digressI forced myself to do a very Brief review of Moonglow because of a vo [...]

Moonglowis a meaningful, moving and memorable work of fictional autobiography I enjoyed the book tremendously, and genuinely I was moved by the depth of feeling that Michael Chabon brings to a part of his family history.There are a number of underlying themes running through Moonglow, one of which addresses depression This is handled sensitively, with real feeling, and little or no sugar coating.By contrast with the strands of the story that focus on the tragic effects of depression , some humou [...]