Fiction, American Fiction, World Literature, Fiction Subjects

A Model World and Other Stories

Name: A Model World and Other Stories
Author: Michael Chabon
ISBN: 9780060790608

by Michael Chabon

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Overview

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.

The celebrated author of The New York Times bestseller The Mysteries of Pittsburgh presents his first collection of short stories. From the complexity and wit of "A Model World" and "Millionaires" to the wrenching emotions exposed in a series of stories about a boy whose parents are divorcing, this collection is extraordinary.

Synopsis

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.

Publishers Weekly

Chabon, acclaimed author of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh , offers a collection of understated, ironic tales about people seeking acceptance. Nine of the stories first appeared in the New Yorker. (Mar.)

About the Author, Michael Chabon

Although his novels and short stories have varied in setting -- from the 1940s New York of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay to the contemporary Pittsburgh of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh -- all of Michael Chabon s witty and understated books feature memorable, deftly-drawn characters trying to find their place in the world.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Library Journal

This collection of 11 stories by the author of the well-received Mysteries of Pittsburgh (Morrow, 1988) should help cement Chabon's status as one of the best of America's young fiction writers. Each of the stories concerns an individual's adaptation to a changed relationship, be it with wife (or ex-wife), friend, lover, or parent. Particularly evocative are the five final stories which fall under the rubric ``The Lost World.'' They deal with a boy's response to his parents' divorce and their subsequent attempts to establish new partnerships. Chabon writes with intelligence, humor, and an obvious love of language. In the first story's marvelous opening paragraph, the protagonist goes from performing his toilet ``with patience, hope, and a ruthless punctilic'' to sitting in the back at his cousin's wedding ``awash in a nostalgic tedium . . . wishing for irretrievable things.'' It leaves one hoping that, like Dr. Shapiro in ``More Than Human,'' Chabon never surrenders his love for ``the soothing foolishness of words.'' If he keeps developing, he will become a major force in American fiction. Essential for all public and academic libraries. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/90.-- David W. Henderson, Eckerd Coll. Lib., St. Petersburg, Fla.

School Library Journal

YA-- Originally published in The New Yorker and other magazines, these short stories are delightful in their portrayal of characters, the light irony of the situations, and the flow of the sentences. Chabon deftly paints humorously odd people floundering for fulfillment. In the first part, readers glide into a kaleidoscope of worlds--a Jewish wedding in Los Angeles; Laguna Beach with an estranged couple; Paris with an American do-gooder; Pittsburgh with a down-and-out baseball catcher, a disc jockey, and a blundering toy maker; and finally duplicity in academe. Chabon's stories will captivate creative writing students, students of literature, and casual readers alike. --Susan Callahan, R. E. Lee High School, Springfield, VA