Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son »

Although his novels and short stories have varied in setting -- from the 1940s New York of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay to the contemporary Pittsburgh of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh -- all of Michael Chabon s witty and understated books feature memorable, deftly-drawn characters trying to find their place in the world.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author— "an immensely gifted writer and a magical prose stylist" (Michiko Kakutani, New York Times)—offers his first major work of nonfiction, an autobiographical narrative as inventive, beautiful, and powerful as his acclaimed, award-winning fiction.

A shy manifesto, an impractical handbook, the true story of a fabulist, an entire life in parts and pieces, Manhood for Amateurs is the first sustained work of personal writing from Michael Chabon. In these insightful, provocative, slyly interlinked essays, one of our most brilliant and humane writers presents his autobiography and his vision of life in the way so many of us experience our own lives: as a series of reflections, regrets, and 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 and interprets and struggles to reinvent for us, with characteristic warmth and lyric wit, the personal and family history that haunts him even as—simply because—it goes on being written every day. As a devoted son, as a passionate husband, and above all as the father of four young Americans, Chabon presents his memories of childhood, of his parents' marriage and divorce, of moments of painful adolescent comedy and giddy encounters with the popular art and literature of his own youth, as a theme played—on different instruments, with a fresh tempo and in a new key—by the mad quartet of which he now finds himself co-conductor.

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

The New York Times Book Review - David Kamp

A lot of Dad Lit makes me cringe, and, worse, makes me think less of writers I'd previously admired…So it's a relief to say that Manhood for Amateurs isn't really Dad Lit, at least not in the Xtreme sense that its user's-manual-like handle indicates. While it bears some of the hallmarks of the genre…the book is a closer relation to Joan Didion's White Album. That is to say, it's not a chronicle, but rather a vaguely themed collection of thoughtful first-person essays…that capture a certain time and mood. The theme: maleness in its various states—boyhood, manhood, fatherhood, brotherhood. The time: now, juxtaposed frequently with Chabon's 1970s childhood. The mood: wistful…Ultimately, what makes this collection so melancholically pleasurable is not the modern-dad stuff but Chabon's ready and vivid access to his own childhood.

1 Secret Handshake

The Losers' Club 3

2 Techniques of Betrayal

William and I 11

The Cut 21

D.A.R.E. 29

The Memory Hole 39

The Binding of Isaac 45

3 Strategies for the Folding of Time

To the Legoland Station 53

The Wilderness of Childhood 62

Hypocritical Theory 72

The Splendors of Crap 82

4 Exercises in Masculine Affection

The Hand on My Shoulder 95

The Story of Our Story 105

The Ghost of Irene Adler 116

The Heartbreak Kid 123

A Gift 131

5 Styles of Manhood

Faking It 139

Art of Cake 147

On Canseco 156

I Feel Good About My Murse 164

6 Elements of Fire

Burning Women 175

Verging 183

Fever 191

Looking for Trouble 195

A Woman of Valor 202

7 Patterns of Early Enchantment

Like, Cosmic 215

Subterranean 224

X09 232

Sky and Telescope 238

8 Studies in Pink and Blue

Surefire Lines 247

Cosmodemonic 255

Boyland 263

A Textbook Father 270

9 Tactics of Wonder and Loss

The Omega Glory 279

Getting Out 289

Radio Silence 297

Normal Time 306

Xmas 312

The Amateur Family 322

10 Cue the Mickey Katz

Daughter of the Commandment 333