Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

An entertaining omnibus of opinionated essays previously published mostly in Details magazine spotlights novelist Chabon's (The Yiddish Policemen's Union) model of being an attentive, honest father and a fairly observant Jew. Living in Berkeley, Calif., raising four children with his wife, Ayelet Waldman, who has also just published a collection of parenting stories (Bad Mother), Chabon, at 45, revisits his own years growing up in the 1970s with a mixture of rue and relief. A child of the suburbs of Maryland and elsewhere, where children could still play in what he calls in one essay the Wilderness of Childhood, he enjoyed a freedom now lost to kids, endured the divorce of his parents, smoked a lot of pot, suffered a short early marriage and finally found his life's partner, who takes risks where he won't. The essays are tidily arranged around themes of manly affection (his first father-in-law, his younger brother); styles of manhood, such as faking at being a handyman; and patterns of early enchantment, such as his delight in comic books, sci-fi and stargazing. Candid, warm and humorous, Chabon's essays display his habitual attention to craft. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"Both lyrical and side-splittingly funny. . . . Readers seeking the intelligence of Updike; the gentle, brainy appeal of Sedaris; or the literary virtuosity of Nabokov will thoroughly enjoy." (Douglas C. Lord, Library Journal )

"Chabon takes a big, fat swing at the essay form with his second collection and achieves success. . . . These warm and thoughtful essays underscore just how good a wordsmith Chabon is-regardless of the form he chooses." (Jerry Eberle, Booklist )

"Wry and heartfelt, Chabon's riffs uncover brand-new insights in even the most quotidian subjects. . . . He applies an unusual level of wit and candor to the form." (Kirkus Reviews (starred review) )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Harper (October 6, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061490180
• ISBN-13: 978-0061490187
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #277 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #24 in

  Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Memoirs

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Collection of Pieces, October 7, 2009

By	Amos Lassen (Little Rock, Arkansas) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

Chabon, Michael. "Manhood for Amateurs; The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son", HarperCollins, 2009.

A Collection of Pieces

Amos Lassen

Michael Chabon's collection of thoughts on being a man ranges from light thoughts to some very poignant and dramatic moments as well as several sustained meditations. If there is unifying themes they are memory and nostalgia. The book is a way to look at the past. However what makes this book special is the author's style--he is sharp and he knows how to treat the reader. He digresses but we digress with him.
Chabon has no problem denigrating himself and does so in some of the finest English language. He goes right to the point with his fluent style. He writes with humor and caustic wit yet his writing is formal and crisp. His work is personal and for that alone is this book worth reading. His thoughts on the loss of innocence ring true and he grounds his cultural criticisms so that they are anecdotal and personal. It's a wonderful read with a lot to say.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Exquisite Blend of the Mundane and the Mind-Blowing, October 13, 2009

By	Bookreporter.com (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

Moms who like to read (and write) about motherhood have had it pretty good over the last decade or so. Led by a cadre of "mom bloggers" and others, women have found new ways to connect over the minutiae, the often thankless drudgery, and even the dark side of modern motherhood. No longer are images of motherhood isolated to the hazy pink aisles of Hallmark's Mother's Day section; instead, moms have discovered camaraderie amid chaos as they read brutally honest confessions of the anguish, boredom and terrifying love to which mothers can now admit. Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon's own wife, Ayelet Waldman, has become famous (or, in some circles, notorious) for her own brilliantly written but painfully honest writings about marriage and motherhood.

And while it's fantastic that moms have avenues for them to connect and to converse, dads have had to work much harder to find thoughtful writing about fatherhood that doesn't idealize, essentialize, or talk down to them. Now, Chabon has filled that niche admirably with MANHOOD FOR AMATEURS, a wide-ranging but thematically focused collection of his autobiographical writings (many previously published in Details magazine and elsewhere). Here, Chabon touches on many of the motifs that he has explored in his other nonfiction writing and in his novels --- baseball, comics, sex, writing, religion --- but inevitably circles back to what is, for him, at the center of it all: his family.

Chabon, a father of four young children, uses his writing to constantly define what it means --- and what it could mean --- to be a husband, a father, and a man in the early years of the 21st century. He defines his own role in comparison to his well-meaning but distant father and also in the context of society's (embarrassingly low) expectations of what fathers can and should accomplish. Chabon's writing is unapologetically male-oriented (female readers will learn what fanboys are really thinking when looking at those buxom, Amazonian comic book heroines). But he writes in a way that continually questions the implications of masculinity. For example, he speaks appreciatively of his forced adolescent introduction into the culinary arts when his mother returned to work and of the implications of a man carrying a (gulp) man purse, or "murse."

Throughout, Chabon utilizes the kind of wry observations and exquisite literary craft that have made his novels both popular and critical sensations. Almost all the essays are simultaneously thoughtful, cohesive, and very, very funny. But Chabon's writing is most affecting and emotionally open when he's writing passionately about his wife and beloved children (even when he's commenting on their odorousness or their tendency to ask difficult questions about embarrassing subjects). His observations on marriage and parenthood are specific enough to resonate with other parents but universal enough to speak to any reader who has considered thoughtfully the role of the family in American life or the changing responsibilities and expectations of the sexes.

I used to have a hard time finding gifts for friends about to embark on the journey of fatherhood; most in my circle would just roll their eyes at a sugary gift book about the meaning of fatherhood. But Michael Chabon's new memoir is so much more than that: it is an exquisite blend of the mundane and the mind-blowing, all broken down into short essays just the right length to read while giving Theo a bottle or waiting for Sadie's soccer game to start --- the perfect book for young dads to stash in their murses.

--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Incisive and beautifully written essays from a brilliant author, November 4, 2009

By	S. Rosen (NJ USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Michael Chabon wrote a volume of essays on family life which manages to avoid falling into tired cliches, or willfully contarian sentiments. Instead, Chabon consistently finds the unique perspective of such well-worn topics as fatherhood, marriage, family.

What comes through is an enthusiasm for life and a relentless need to share that enthusiasm with the reader. Anyone who can write about so traditional a topic as his daughter's Bat Mitzvah, yet cut straight to the heart of the moment in a fresh and vital way is a writer to be reckoned with. This is a wonderful collection.