Telegraph Avenue

I have a bit of a love/hate thing going with Michael Chabon's work. He is a talented writer, no doubt, and tells great stories. He also strikes me pretentious as hell the way he throws around big words, some that aren't even in the dictionary. (And the two novels I've read of his could use a strong dose of editing.) Still I was interested in checking out his latest novel Telegraph Avenue when I read what it was about--there are two couples (one black, one white) and both the women and both the men work together, the men running a record shop, the themes of the novel being marriage, race, and friendship... it sounded like my kind of book. I picked it up after it came out but only got a couple pages in before putting it down. I was not in the mood for his writing.

Then after finished The Ocean at the End of the Lane for some reason I felt like giving the novel another try. At first I was freakishly captivated by the novel--the characters, setting, the tone, the prose (which I annoyingly read aloud sentences that struck me as especially great).  I loved how vivid the characters became, particularly the women.  I loved that the two female characters were midwives and the description of births. But the book grew slightly tedious after a while, the prose's strength seemed to fade as the book went on and there were times that I felt uncomfortable with things that seemed to perpetuate stereotypes. I didn't care so much for the climax, but the ending satisfied me nonetheless. Overall I liked the novel. (But probably won't pick up another Chabon book for a while.)