Moonglow: A Novel

It took a while to get into this one. As I was about to give up, I cheated and skipped to the final chapter, read three sentences, squished my face into an "aww man" and decided I had to know how they got from where I was (chapter 13-ish?) to there. So I turned back with some real chagrin and read on. The more I read, the more I liked the story and the more I liked the story, the more I liked almost everyone involved in this family -- Chabon's family? Good question. I note that it won awards for fiction, but it seems like nonfiction-y fiction or fictionalized nonfiction, or some blend of the two. It's essays, a novel, biography, historic, dramatic, funny and a bunch of other stuff: like a family, I guess. Is it sad? Well, only in the way that everyone's life has some sadness and grief involved. It's not sad overall though, not by a long shot.Moonglow is a wild ride that starts at the bedside of one man dying which turns into a lifetime, a family's story, a very American story - complete with redemptive arcs, great scenes of cities I love, and real vitality. It feels so real because of the little details and the nuances that I haven't found in Chabon's other work. It's very different from the other work in some ways, yet there's always those metaphors. Apparently he inherited that ability, says the [fictionalized nonfiction-ish] grandfather.It's clear that Chabon has a very close understanding of the convoluted underpinnings, including street names, neighborhoods, buildings, businesses, and a real love of the family about which he writes. I wish I'd felt the love before I did. It took me a long time to care about these people. I felt rather divorced from the story being told for far too long. It goes on wild tangents -- sometimes they work beautifully (the story of the snake hunting is a prime example of a beautiful tangent that tells a lovely tangent of a story that tells us important things about the main character) and sometimes they just fell flat for me. It was during one of those moments that I almost abandoned the book.I'm not a skimmer, thank goodness. If one skims in this story, one will miss something that turns out to be vital many pages later. Not in the sense of "how?" but more in the sense of why it matters. I'd imagine it's hard to write a story where all at once you're in the present and past, explaining why someone is finally telling you things you've been angry at them for not telling your whole life. Perhaps this fictionalized way was the only way to get some of this family's secrets out?It's very hard to believe this is plain ole fiction - no matter how good. (Unless maybe that explains all the awards.) I doubt it's for everyone. I thought it wasn't for me, but I found myself wishing I'd known the family of the narrator (who is never called Michael Chabon, but who has a very similar life to its author, Michael Chabon.) I'm glad I read it, and I was sorry when it ended. I've moved on, but the characters and their warm spirits - especially an awkward, flawed, yet fiercely loving grandfather -- will stay with me for a long time.

What is real and what is myth in the grandfather’ s conversations with his grandson? Let’s face it: anything written by Chabon is genius. The grandfather has led a VERY full life, one which must be regarded with Aristotle’s “willing suspension of disbelief “. Through the grandfather we learn about WWII, the Space Race, sex, rocketry and love: of woman, family, country. I recommend this book to “serious “ readers.

"Moonglow" the latest novel from the inventive Michael Chabon, is also one of his most successful creations. This thoroughly enjoyable novel is fashioned as a family memoir, written by an author named "Michael Chabon," focusing on his grandfather, grandmother and mother. The central conceit is that it is based largely on intimate details that the grandfather shares with his grandson "Michael" when he is on his deathbed. The confessional form is well-executed and serves the author well: I don't think the novel would work near as well without its air of verisimilitude, which extends to very realistic evocations of both time and place: Philadelphia in the 30's, post-war Baltimore, Riverside in the Bronx, and a Florida retirement community are all locales that are sketched artfully.I should note the memoirist stance isn't completely successful. There are quite a few scenes in the novel where the details that are "shared" between grandfather and grandson are much more intimate than I would judge reasonable from someone in the generation of Americans that came of age during World Ware II.The book contains a number of striking literary resonances: here and there it pays homage to J.D. Salinger's shattering World War II experiences, "Gravity's Rainbow's" picaresque account of the German V2 rocket program, and the author's own comic book obsession that was on display in "Kavalier and Klay." Like a Doctorow novel, a couple of historical personages make dramatic appearances: the life and career of Werner von Braun is a major narrative thrust, while both "Wild Bill" Donovan and Alger Hiss make cameo appearances that add to the realism of the plot. There are also distinct echoes of the deranged road trip Lolita takes with Humbert, with the deft twist of a modern empowered, feminist heroine. (Think, Felix Krull, Confidence Man, corrupts Katniss Everdeen.)Chabon has an especially deft touch with all his female characters; when they are center stage, the book really shines. How the grandfather's tale illuminates the author's understanding of his mother and her life history (and, by definition, his) is a particularly poignant high point.The life of the lead character, the grandfather, dominates the narrative, and that is not always the book's strength because he is a bit more one-dimensional than any of the female protagonists. In a final bit of literary resonance, he reminded me of a Jewish version of Bellow's Henderson -- he wants, but he usually isn't able to articulate what it is that he wants. And, like Bellow's hero, his comic blundering propels the novel's action forward.All in all, this is a very satisfactory read.

Michael Chabon plays with memories and the memoir form in his new book, Moonglow, which is billed as a novel. The Chabonic narrator is helping to take care of his taciturn grandfather as he lays dying. The meds have loosened his tongue and his grandson is happy in this one sense: his grandfather is talking at last.Early on in the book, Chabon’s narrator says: “To claim or represent that I retain an exact or even approximate recollection of what anyone said so long ago would be to commit the memoirist’s great sin.” Is the author toying with us? It would seem so because what we have here, weaving in and out of different timelines, are stories and dialogue that are ‘recalled’ with crystal clarity: the grandfather’s spell in prison, his end-of-wartime exploits as part of an intelligence unit sent to track down the cream of Germany’s rocket scientists and spirit them to the States before the Russians can get their hands on them. (The grandfather - a passionate follower of the space programme and an inspired engineer himself - might even have been a rocket man in another life.) He recounts the story of how he met the narrator’s grandmother, a French refugee with terrible memories leading to profound mental illness. When the narrator, as a young boy, asks why his grandma owns a deck of fortune-telling cards, is it because she is a witch? She replies, “Not anymore.” But she certainly bewitches the grandfather who cares for her deeply. When they first meet, she is already the mother of a young daughter. The grandfather, whose name we never learn, has no blood tie to the narrator at all.This is a book with tremendous heart: a serenade to family told with Michael Chabon’s customary command and into which he effortlessly injects his own natural warmth and good humour. Despite Chabon’s flagrant flouting of the grandfather’s exhortation to: “Put the whole thing in chronological order, not like this mishmash I’m making you”, the style reflects an old man’s wandering reminiscences. Moonglow is woven with great tales and dotted with brilliant characters - none more so than the grandfather with whom I ended up quite in love. I would imagine that on book tours this Pulitzer Prize-winning writer must be asked incessantly: “How much of Moonglow is true?” But does it matter? And if this really is a memoir, how I envy the author because the plain fact is that by the time most of us become interested in our family history, it’s too late to get the answers to our questions. Chabon got lucky. So are the readers who love his books.

IncandescentNow that Bellow is dead and Roth retired, Chabon steps up to be the new bard of the Jewish experience in America. Going beyond his previous efforts to capture the zeitgeist, Chabon produces his best work since, well, his last novel, Telegraph Avenue. No one except Franzen writes such accessible, big novels.This 'biography' of Chabon's 'grandfather' is a stunning piece of whimsy, the tale of a cranky old genius that grips and surprises throughout. It is also a bizarre take on the Jewish belief or non-belief in God, the Holocaust and masculinity. Some critics would prefer Chabon to be more serious and not so flip, but he manages to make telling observations and convey ideas while making the reader flip the page. That he is now the heavyweight champion of quality American Jewish prose seems to me to be beyond dispute, if you count this, Kavalier and Clay, Wonder Boys, Telegraph Avenue and The Yiddish Policeman's Union into account.Its a long, hairy novel, full of time switches and strange incidents. The prose is great; sparkling but not as showy as he can write. But I enjoyed it all and can see why it is up for literary prizes.A treat.

When I bought this book I understood it to be a novel but the opening pages made me wonder if it was a memoir/biography. I wouldn't normally have bought either because I am a fiction reader but it was already far too late to abandon it. Also, I'd forgotten that it was described as the lifestory told on an old man's deathbed - another (sub?)genre I rarely choose to read.Whatever. Chabon is a brilliant writer. Whatever he writes, I can't put down once I start reading. Another reviewer describes him as the new American heavyweight novelist and while I see what this is meant to say I feel that Chabon's writing is so light, fluid and immediate that the word heavy ought not to go in the same place with it.Also, the Grandfather whose story is told (whether he is Chabon's grandfather or a fictional one hardly matters) is a fascinating man who I would love to have met. And he and the Grandmother and the mother and the narrator and all the incidental characters are all people I feel the richer for having met even if only on the page.Also the history, made personal, of the war against Hitler, the life of Jews in America, the space programme, the atrocities and the memories that came back from that war and that appalling era is yet again made new. The story of how some people tried to make sense of their lives after going through these things is riveting, gripping and harrowing, moving, tender, matter of fact and I could go on but I can't do justice. Just read it.

MoonglowMichael Chabon9/10When I was a kid, my dad used to tell me all kinds of tales. Tales from the war, tales about my grandad, tales from his national service, tales about my great grandad.He was a young farmer’s lad in Bramley during the second world war and his wartime tales were like Ealing comedies, full of bobbies being bribed, Heinkels crashing in Bramley fall woods, the crew being captured by the local toughs and pigs being traded for booze and cigarette rations.His stories about my great grandad captivated me the most though. In a wheelchair for most of his life, my great grandad had fought in the Crimean war and was present and correct in the charge of the light brigade. His legs were destroyed by a Russian cannon and he spent the rest of his life without legs. I was spellbound.These stories entered into the canon of our family history and became inextricably linked to my life: they were true. As I grew older I knew my dad had the propensity to embellish as story and I’m sure that I have inherited his skill, as have most of us. We’d roll our eyes and chuckle as a breakdown in the snow would turn into an escapade worthy of John Buchan’s 39 Steps on its umpteenth telling.So in recent years when I found out, purely by chance, that my great grandad didn’t lose his legs in the Crimea but in an accident falling off a wall in Stanningley, I smiled. I thought about the intricate stories my dad had weaved over the years, and instead of thinking about the truth of his tales, what's real and what's made up, I relaxed and accepted the delicate balance between truth and fiction we all have to achieve to some degree.It was with this mindset I approached this book. Pitched as kind of memoir initially, I was comfortable from the off to read this as a work of pure fiction with some factual stuff thrown in for good measure.Moonglow is a wonderful read – engaging and emotional in so many ways. Characters I cared about from the off, delicately woven together and completely believable. The device of broken timelines normally annoys me but was totally acceptable in this instance, piecing together the lives lived and the experiences were vividly portrayed.The grandfather was superbly complex and utterly convincing -- and his relationship with his wife was tender, real and drew me right in. Every other character in the book orbited around this relationship like the heavenly bodies he worshipped so dearly — in a way they were the centre of their own firmament.The second world war chapters of the book were entirely absorbing and beautifully told, the premise of hunting Von Braun was a masterstroke and his subsequent journey across Germany was fabulous. Incredibly vivid imagery still linger such as the German boy on the motorcycle.As if that wasn’t enough, Chabon followed on from WW2 with moon exploration and model making! This book ticked a lot of boxes for me, given my obsession as a child with the second world war, space exploration and model making. He even mentions ‘kit bashing’ – which is very niche model making terminology, referring to how early movie spaceships models were made. Lovely.And yet the author told the story carefully and patiently, revealing bit by bit the implications of the actions of the grandfather and instead of a source of frustration, the dislocated narrative drew me in, revealing answers to questions, allowing me to piece it all together. Although the grandfather wished for his story to be told in chronological order, the author’s decision to mix it up is the right one.I loved the grandfather’s quote which went along the lines of ‘all of this is true, at least to the best of my memory’ and this is the reason why this book is so successful. It wears it factuality very lightly and I wasn’t tempted once to check the historical accuracy of the story. At times it reminded me of the way William Boyd effortlessly weaves in real characters from history into his fictional narratives.I’ll stop now because I could write about this book for a very long time and I’m aware a long written review can be a pain, so I’ll apologise in advance. Moonglow is one of the best books we’ve read in book club, enjoyable in itself (how the hell did we manage that??) and nourishing because it got me thinking about my life, my family and the people in it.

Maybe I am Chabonised out after having enjoyed Kavalier and Clay but I found myself unable to stick with this story . The whole thing seemed artificial and self indulgent. Well written and at times amusing but after getting close to a hundred pages the trials and tribulations of grandfather and family generally left me less than riveted. A skinless wonder.