Manhood for Amateurs (Hardcover) by Michael Chabon

A shy manifesto, an impractical handbook, the true story of a fabulist, an entire life in parts & pieces, Manhood for Amateursis the first sustained work of personal writing from Michael Chabon. In these insightful, provocative, slyly interlinked essays, one of our most brilliant & humane writers presents his autobiography & his vision of life in the way so many of us experience our own lives: as a series of reflections, regrets, & reexaminations, each sparked by an encounter, in the present, that holds some legacy of the past.

What does it mean to be a man today? Chabon invokes & interprets & struggles to reinvent for us, with characteristic warmth & lyric wit, the personal & family history that haunts him even as--simply because--it goes on being written every day. As a devoted son, as a passionate husband, & above all as the father of four young Americans, Chabon presents his memories of childhood, of his parents' marriage & divorce, of moments of painful adolescent comedy & giddy encounters with the popular art & literature of his own youth, as a theme played--on different instruments, with a fresh tempo & in a new key--by the mad quartet of which he now finds himself co-conductor.

At once dazzling, hilarious, & moving, Manhood for Amateurs is destined to become a classic.