South Shore Readers discussion

Our April book selection is Moonglow by Michael Chabon.



We will be meeting in person the last Sunday in April for a discussion (see details and RSVP here:https://www.goodreads.com/event/show/...) BUT you can also post your thoughts and progress here!


Book description from publisher:

A novel of truth and lies, family legends, and existential adventure—and the forces that work to destroy us.

In 1989, fresh from the publication of his first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Michael Chabon traveled to his mother's home in Oakland, California, to visit his terminally ill grandfather.

Tongue loosened by powerful painkillers, memory stirred by the imminence of death, Chabon's grandfather shared recollections and told stories the younger man had never heard before, uncovering bits and pieces of a history long buried and forgotten. That dreamlike week of revelations forms the basis for the novel Moonglow, the latest feat of legerdemain from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon.

Moonglow unfolds as the deathbed confession of a man the narrator refers to only as "my grandfather."

It is a tale of madness, of war and adventure, of sex and marriage and desire, of existential doubt and model rocketry, of the shining aspirations and demonic underpinnings of American technological accomplishment at midcentury, and, above all, of the destructive impact—and the creative power—of keeping secrets and telling lies.

It is a portrait of the difficult but passionate love between the narrator’s grandfather and his grandmother, an enigmatic woman broken by her experience growing up in war-torn France. It is also a tour de force of speculative autobiography in which Chabon devises and reveals a secret history of his own imagination.

From the Jewish slums of prewar South Philadelphia to the invasion of Germany, from a Florida retirement village to the penal utopia of New York's Wallkill prison, from the heyday of the space program to the twilight of the "American Century," the novel revisits an entire era through a single life and collapses a lifetime into a single week.

A lie that tells the truth, a work of fictional nonfiction, an autobiography wrapped in a novel disguised as a memoir, Moonglow is Chabon at his most moving and inventive.

Michael Chabon has written a number of well-known books. Have you read any of them?

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Wonder Boys
Telegraph Avenue
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
The Final Solution
Gentlemen of the Road
Summerland
Manhood for Amateurs
Werewolves in Their Youth
A Model World and Other Stories


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I've read and enjoyed quite a few of his books. The ones that I've read are:
Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Wonder Boys
Mysteries of Pittsburgh
Summerland

Replying to myself again. ;)

The meeting for this book is this Sunday at 1 in Marshfield. Hope to see you there! RSVP in the group event if you can make it (see link in 1st post in this topic)

I am about 70% done with the book so I am hoping to finish it on time. I am enjoying it!


Here's more info about von Braun and his rocket science:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher...

This is my first Michael Chabon book, and I really like his writing style. It's not quite the warm fuzzy blanket that was The Boston Girl (effing Nazi a-holes), but I really liked this book. I should finish it today.

Maybe it's just because I'm tired, but I just searched the library for Station Eight, only to realize that Station Eight is the restaurant. Station Eleven is the next book. More coffee!

Now we just need to find stations 9 and 10!

I'm about 60% done and I like it but don't love it. Maybe I'll like it more by the end.

I finished the book in the last 15 minutes. Overall I gave it a 4 out of 5. I've read several Chabon books before and I like his writing style. I think it made it even more intriguing that it blurred the lines between fiction and non-fiction.

More thoughts later.