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Information About

Michael Chabon





NOVELS AND SHORT STORIES

His first novel, '' The Mysteries Of Pittsburgh '' appeared in 1988 and became a Best Seller . His subsequent works include '' Wonder Boys '' (1995), a novel about a frustrated novelist (based on Chabon's unsuccessful attempt at writing a much larger novel) which was made into a Motion Picture ; '' The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier & Clay '', about an illustrator and a writer in the early Comic Book industry, which won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize For Fiction ; and '' Summerland '' (2002), a fantasy novel written for younger readers, which won the 2003 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award . In 2004, he wrote ''The Final Solution'', a short novel about an investigation led by an unknown old man, whom the reader can guess to be Sherlock Holmes , during the final years of World War II. His works have been praised for their characterizations and complex use of the English language.

Chabon also has two collections of Short Stories , both of which came out after his debut novel, entitled ''Werewolves in their Youth'' and ''A Model World''. He wrote a screenplay draft for '' Spider-Man 2 '', much of which was used in the final film. His Dark Horse Comics project '' The Amazing Adventures Of The Escapist '', a quarterly anthology series, purports to cull stories from an involved, fictitious “sixty-year history” of the Escapist character created by the protagonists of “Kavalier & Clay.” It was awarded the 2005 Eisner Award for Best Anthology, and a pair of Harvey Awards , that same year, for Best Anthology and Best New Series.


Homosexuality as a theme

Early in his career some readers and critics mistakenly assumed that he was gay, due to the presence of gay characters in his first three novels. In a re-issued edition of his first novel, '' The Mysteries Of Pittsburgh '', Chabon included an addition in which he discussed the main character's homosexuality. {Link without Title} Although Chabon is today married to a woman, he reveals in the re-issued ''Mysteries of Pittsburgh'' that he has in fact had some same-sex relations.

However, when interviewers ask Chabon if he is gay, the author typically answers "no." After ''Mysteries of Pittsburgh'' was published, '' Newsweek '' misidentified Chabon as a gay writer. Chabon later told '' The New York Times '' that he was almost happy for the magazine's error. "I feel very lucky about all of that," he told the ''Times'' in 2000. "It really opened up a new readership to me, and a very loyal one."


FILM

He has also been writing a film adaptation of ''The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay'', reportedly to be directed by Stephen Daldry , and is at work on a rewrite of a project for Disney , a live-action martial arts retelling of '' Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs '', to be directed by master Hong Kong fight choreographer and director Yuen Wo Ping . He was initially linked to the screenplay for '' Spider-Man 3 '' during pre-production, but was eventually passed over.


PERSONAL LIFE

Chabon currently lives in Berkeley , California , with his wife Ayelet Waldman , who is also an author, and their four children.


BIBLIOGRAPHY



TRIVIA

  • His name is pronounced, as he says, "Shea as in Shea Stadium, Bon as in Jovi".


  • Starting with '' Wonder Boys '', Chabon provides subtle hints throughout his work that the stories he tells take place in a shared fictional universe. In that novel, one of the buildings on the unnamed college campus where protagonist Grady Tripp teaches is called Arning Hall; the biker antihero of '' The Mysteries Of Pittsburgh '' is Cleveland Arning, described as having come from a wealthy family (that might be expected to be able to endow a building). Also mentioned in that novel, though not by name, is a dead Pittsburgh Pirates catcher very similar to the Eli Drinkwater whose funeral figures in Chabon’s story ''Smoke''. It’s clear that Happy Blackmore, a sportswriter who gives the Ford Galaxie to Grady Tripp as payment for a debt, has written a biography of Drinkwater. Drinkwater makes another appearance, in passing, in Summerland. As one final example, in '' The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier & Clay '', mention is made of a “Levine School of Applied Meteorology.” Levine is a main character in Chabon’s story ''A Model World''—he discovers, or rather plagiarizes, a formula for “nephokinesis,” i.e., cloud control.



  • Chabon has also forged an unusual horror/fantasy fiction persona, under the name of August Van Zorn. More elaborately sketched than a pseudonym, "August Van Zorn" is itself purported to be a pen name for one Albert Vetch (1899-1963), described by Chabon as "the greatest unknown horror writer of the twentieth century." Van Zorn is both a peripheral character in Chabon's novel ''Wonder Boys'' (in which the main characters share a fascination with Van Zorn), and the attributed author of "In The Black Mill", a short story in Chabon's 1999 collection ''Werewolves in Their Youth''. Chabon has created a comprehensive bibliography for Van Zorn, and even given him an equally-fictional literary scholar devoted to his ouevre, named Leon Chaim Bach. In 2004, Chabon established the August Van Zorn Prize, "awarded to the short story that most faithfully and disturbingly embodies the tradition of the weird short story as practiced by Edgar Allan Poe and his literary descendants, among them August Van Zorn."



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