BookBrowse Reviews Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon

Summary |  Excerpt |  Reviews |  Beyond the book |  Read-Alikes |  Genres & Themes |  Author Bio

Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon

Manhood for Amateurs

The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son

by Michael Chabon
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (7):
  • First Published:
  • Oct 1, 2009, 320 pages
  • Paperback:
  • May 2010, 336 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Reviews

BookBrowse:


Personal essays on childhood, marriage, and fatherhood from the author of The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay
This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For access to our digital magazine, free books,and other benefits, become a member today.

After tackling novels, short stories, genre fiction, screenplays, a young adult novel, and, last year, his first work of nonfiction (Maps and Legends, a collection of linked essays), Michael Chabon finally talks about his own life in these personal narratives on manhood.

The book acts as a manual of sorts, divided into sections with playfully instructive titles like "Techniques of Betrayal," "Exercises in Masculine Affection," and "Tactics of Wonder and Loss." This gives a loose structure to a collection that explores, in non-chronological fashion, Chabon's variety of roles as father, son, teenager, friend, and husband, among others.

Since the essays tend to be short (one of them is only three pages, and many are not much longer), it's difficult to be immersed in one story for long before moving on to a different time, setting, and mood. But the book seems to return to its anchor whenever the present-day Chabon - the father, husband, and writer he is now - re-emerges.

There are moving moments in this collection, such as Chabon's relationship with his ex-wife's father - a man Chabon calls "one of the best fathers I've ever found," a man who was, in some ways, "divorced by someone he treated like a son (you can read this essay in full at BookBrowse)." Cultural references span Chabon's four and a half decades, from the Planet of the Apes and Wacky Packages of his youth to the new Doctor Who series he now watches with his children. It's charming to hear from the type of father who confesses, "Part of my desire to have so many children was the longing for a fan club to belong to, for imaginative fellowship, for the society of passionate amateurs like me." Humorous episodes of perfectly executed wit round out the collection, as when Chabon, who has always sworn by the manly virtue of a wallet, finds himself - four children and many diaper bags later - on the hunt for a murse - a man purse.

And, oh, there's also sex and drugs.

Throughout, Chabon's prose moves elegantly from humor to honesty to poignance. He strikes just the right amount of vulnerability - truthful but not divulging, candid but not crass. Even in nostalgia and regret, the voice is neither sentimental nor self-absorbed. Chabon simply tells his stories.

Reviewed by Julie Wan

This review was originally published in The BookBrowse Review in October 2009, and has been updated for the May 2010 edition. Click here to go to this issue.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Beyond the Book:
  Ayelet Waldman's Bad Mother

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked Manhood for Amateurs, try these:

  • Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother jacket

    Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

    by Amy Chua

    Published 2011

    About This book

    More by this author

    An awe-inspiring, often hilarious, and unerringly honest story of one mother's exercise in extreme parenting, revealing the rewards - and the costs - of raising her children the Chinese way.

  • Making Toast jacket

    Making Toast

    by Roger Rosenblatt

    Published 2011

    About This book

    More by this author

    When his daughter, Amy, died suddenly of a heart condition, Roger Rosenblatt and his wife moved in with their son-in-law and their three young grandchildren. His story tells how a family makes the possible out of the impossible.

We have 5 read-alikes for Manhood for Amateurs, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
More books by Michael Chabon
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
Before Dorothy
by Hazel Gaynor
Before Oz, Aunt Em leaves Chicago for Kansas in a powerful tale of courage, change, and new beginnings by Hazel Gaynor.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    The Original
    by Nell Stevens

    In a grand English country house in 1899, an aspiring art forger must unravel whether the man claiming to be her long-lost cousin is an impostor.

  • Book Jacket

    Angelica
    by Molly Beer

    A women-centric view of revolution through the life of Angelica Schuyler Church, Alexander Hamilton's influential sister-in-law.

  • Book Jacket

    The Whyte Python World Tour
    by Travis Kennedy

    Rikki Thunder, drummer for '80s metal band Whyte Python, is on the verge of fame, love—and a spy mission he didn’t expect.

Who Said...

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who divide the world into two kinds of people, and those who don'...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

E H L the B

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.