Product Description

By the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14648 in Books
• Published on: 2005-06-23
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

From Publishers Weekly
First-novelist Chabon, with "distinctive vision" and "an elegiac, graceful style," spins a story about alienated youth that, while serving up some familiar details of sex, alcohol and drugs, "fully engages the reader in the lives of an appealing cast of characters," said PW .
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ingram
Chabon provides a brilliantly fresh first novel and national bestseller about the joys and pains of youth coming of age. "Astonishing . . . The voice of a young writer with tremendous skill as he discovers, joyously, just what his words can do."--New York Times.

About the Author
MICHAEL CHABON is the bestselling and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, A Model World, Wonder Boys, Werewolves in Their Youth, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Summerland (a novel for children), The Final Solution, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Maps and Legends and Gentlemen of the Road. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife, the novelist Ayelet Waldman, and their children. Visit him online at www.michaelchabon.com.

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Customer Reviews

Disturbing...detached...and disengaging.
I'm a fan of Chabon's stuff. But I began in the middle of his oeuvre, then over time worked forwards, then backwards. So maybe this informed my reaction to this, his début.

I'm still not sure how I feel about it. I wasn't enthralled. There was a poetic grace at play...but I never felt as charmed as I'd expected I would.

Maybe the problem I had was that the characters are of an 'unformed age'. They don't have all the answers. (They hardly seem interested in the questions.) There's behaviour here that is the domain of the near-adult; a sort of indulgent recklessness that's less energetic than the type teenagers exhibit...maybe dulled by the anticipated onset of adulthood and the flatness it invariably brings. At times Chabon veers towards being precious...but it's only ever a threat. At least that's how I remember it. Of course, what all this means is that he represented the characters' ages well.

There's a definite sparseness in the prose, a softness of declaration that fits with the characters.

And I appreciated how much he left out, especially given that this was a summer's tale.

'The Mysteries of Pittsburgh' is its own tale, regardless of how much it owes to any of the tales that suggested its writing.

But despite all the quiet mastery of its execution, I'm not sure I'd recommend it. It might be the kind of novel best discovered by the reader either by chance or by legacy, rather than having it places in their hand.

Such is Chabon.

Personal rating: 7.5/10

Helped me come of age...
I read this book when it first came out, years ago, and felt compelled to response to some of the comments here. This is my first Amazon review.

This book first drew me BECAUSE of the lyrical nature of the writing and the theme of coming-of-age. Yes, Chabon is a walking thesaurus, as others have said of his books, but gee -- LOOK IT UP! Want your books to be pap? Read Dick and Jane, then. Want your language to be simple? Read Hemingway. This is neither.

But, if you want a thoughtful, lyrical story that captures a moment in a young man's life, read this. Then read Chabon's other books. You won't be disappointed.

Quick and Enjoyable
Reading the other reviews, it seems that fans of Chabon are a little harsh in their reviews of this book ... although it does not compare to Wonder Boys or Kavalier & Clay, the Mysteries of Pittsburgh is a fun read and a charming tale. The larger-than-life personae in this book and the general course of the novel draws immediate comparisons to F. Scott Fitzgerald, and of course while such comparisons will come up short, Mysteries of Pittsburgh is an enjoyable, artfully constructed book full of unforgettable characters.

The themes central to this story- love, ambition, uncertainty of oneself as an individual, the futility of running away from one's personal demons to name a few- are more fully developed in Chabon's later works, but they are no less a presence in Mysteries in Pittsburgh. Others have been a bit dismissive of the "first novel" label on this book, but still when looking at a book and at an author it is important to recognize where he or she started creatively and what direction they have moved in. As such, while Mysteries of Pittsburgh is not Chabon's greatest work by any means, it is a good start to the rest of his books and even on its own merits, is certainly worth the time taken to read it.