Michael Chabon's America

Jesse Kavadlo is professor of English at Maryville University. He is president of the Don DeLillo Society and author of Don DeLillo: Balance at the Edge of Belief (2003). Bob Batchelor is James Pedas Professor of Communication and executive director of the James Pedas Communication Center at Thiel College. He is the author or editor of more than twenty books, including John Updike: A Critical Biography (2013) and Gatsby: A Cultural History of the Great American Novel (Rowman & Littlefield, 2013). He is founding editor of the Popular Culture Studies Journal and editor of the Contemporary American Literature series published by Rowman & Littlefield.

Kovadlo and Batchelor have edited a thoughtful, worthwhile volume on novelist and essayist Michael Chabon. The book is divided into sections that situate Chabon in relationship to popular culture; genre conventions; ethnicity and gender; and Chabon as a writer, noting training and earlier literary movements that influenced him. The editors’ lucid introduction points out the paucity of scholarship on Chabon in comparison to such contemporaries as David Foster Wallace, Junot Diaz, and Jonathan Franzen, as well as to such forebears as Updike, Mailer, and Roth 'at similar points in their careers.' The volume is illuminating throughout. Batchelor, for instance, makes a persuasive comparison of Chabon’s flawed but likable protagonist Grady Tripp, from Wonder Boys, with counterparts in film (the Coen Brothers’ Jeff Lebowski) and in politics (Bill Clinton). Stephen Hock traces the pervasive influence of comic books on Chabon’s subject matter. Josef Benson examines 'queer masculinities' in Chabon’s fiction and nonfiction. David McKay Powell supplies a careful, close reading of Chabon’s Wonder Boys that locates possible parallels in the novel to Chabon’s development as a gifted writer with an expansive imagination. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.

• Acknowledgements Introduction: Bob Batchelor and Jesse Kavadlo1: Real Maps of Imaginary Worlds; or, Michael Chabon, Shadowtail – Jesse KavadloChronicling Popular Culture2: The Dudes Abide: Examining Clinton-Era Identity in Wonder Boys and The Big Lebowski – Bob Batchelor3: Quentin Tarantino and the Paradox of Popular Culture in Michael Chabon’s Telegraph Avenue – John Joseph Hess4: Driving Away: Muscle Cars, Loss, and Unrequited Travels with Chabon – Charli Valdez5: “Guess Who I am Now”: On Communication and Childhood in Michael Chabon’s ‘Lost World’ Stories – Mike Witcombe Chabon’s Mysteries: Comics and Genre6: Comix Remix, or, The Strange Case of Mr. Chabon – Stephen Hock7: “An American Golem:” The Necessity of Myth in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay – Seth Johnson8: The Chatter of an African Gray Parrot: The Final Solution as Postmodern Detective Fiction – Marjorie Worthington9: Genre for Justice: The Final Solution and The Yiddish Policemen’s Union as Reflections of Golden Age Detective Fiction Texts – Monica LottEthnicity, Gender, and Masculinity in Chabon’s Oeuvre 10: Michael Chabon’s Gentlemen of the Road and the Rejection of Communal Identity as Heroic Quest – Eric Sandberg11: Solving the Jewish Case: Metaphorical Detection in Michael Chabon’s The Final Solution and The Yiddish Policemen’s Union – Inbar Kaminsky12: Not Growing Old but Growing Up: Appropriate Masculine Identity in Michael Chabon’s Wonder Boys – Alex Hobbs13: Queer Masculinities in The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and Manhood for Amateurs – Josef BensonChabon’s American Expression14: Michael Chabon’s Wonder Boys and Therapeutic Creativity – David McKay Powell15: American Prowess Deconstructed: Michael Chabon and the Merger of Naturalism and Fantasy – Jake Sudderth16: “Hope Unfulfilled, Not Yet Betrayed”: Michael Chabon’s Nostalgia for the Future – Matt KavanaghIndexAbout the ContributorsAbout the Editors