Moonglow by Michael Chabon

Amy    

memoir, historical fiction


Moonglow is a very personal novel—it's the author's, Michael Chabon's, family history. It centers on his maternal grandfather’s life of dissatisfaction and perseverance. But, the entire family is included in the story. Interestingly, the author chose to continually refer to these characters by their relation to him: my mother, my grandfather, my uncle, etc. Therefore, it felt especially personal. I’m not sure why he chose to include his family members’ actual names instead of declaring the novel to be pure fiction populated with anonymous characters. I have a hunch that it is more interesting to the reader knowing that these people really existed and really played a role in making the man Chabon became. Indeed while parts are charming and parts are extremely interesting, it’s mostly fairly boring to anyone other than the author. I suppose boring isn’t the right word. I just mean that it’s not an amazing story most of the time—just average life stories and experiences. And, I suspect that’s another reason he kept it real. But there are certainly some interesting stories in his family history and he does not shy away from including the ugly stuff.

I’m not sure that I completely trust Chabon to have told us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. This is a work of fiction, and as a very creative writer, I’m sure he has taken liberties in his stories within Moonglow. There is certainly much more detail than is plausibly remembered. But, as with the other novel of his that I've read, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, I enjoyed Chabon’s use of the English language and I liked his story-telling for the most part. I was shocked when he got extremely personal about his grandfather’s sex life a couple of times. I would be surprised if his grandfather actually described the sexual position he and his wife shared on one occasion and his premature ejaculation another time, as examples. And, for such a personal book, I assume he took into account that his descendants would likely read this novel but he decided to put that stuff in anyway. It’s just interesting to me.

The narrator of the audiobook, George Newbern, had a very pleasant voice. He wasn’t the best with different voices, but not terrible. The grandfather’s voice was recognizable and consistent throughout which was most important. Newbern’s accents were pretty good. I give him an A- for this novel. I struggled a bit with the timeframe jumping around in the story as often happens with audiobooks. I’m sure it was easier for book readers because they were able to refer to the written years on the pages. Another disadvantage for audiobook listeners in this case is that the audiobook excluded the many footnotes that appear in the actual book. I happened to grab a free copy of this book at the ALA Midwinter Convention in January so I browsed through it a few times to go back and catch things—for example, I was curious about the spelling of the name Aughenbaugh.