Details
Synopsis
Art Bechstein encounters a dizzying series of people and events during the summer following his college graduation., Many first-time novelists nobly attempt to self-referentially try to capture the confusion and contemplation that inevitably result from giving up innocence for responsibility. Few of them succeed, but Michael Chabon's MYSTERIES OF PITTSBURGH is an exception. Chabon's depiction of one wild summer in the life of postgraduate Art Bechstein perfectly captures the madness and discovery of a life on the threshold of adulthood. Bechstein, whose life has been dictated and restricted by his gangster father, has a final fling of alcohol, adventure, and romance with a flamboyant cast of enduring characters. He finds his ripening sexuality split by the charming vagabond Arthur Lecomte and a luscious lady named Phlox, but his real reverence is for Cleveland, a renegade philosopher who leaves a trail of dazzled and abandoned admirers in his wake as he enacts his disdain for the rules of society. Chabon's descriptions of the industrial landscape of his hometown of Pittsburgh transform smokestacks and bridges into surreal signposts on the road to realization. The outrageous journey of Art Bechstein seems likely to take him into literary history, as he discovers that the answers we seek through visceral experience are just as likely to be found internally.
| Size | | Length: | 297 pages | | Height: | 8.5 in | | Width: | 5.5 in | | Thickness: | 0.5 in | | Weight: | 9.6 oz |
Industry Reviews
"Astonishing...The voice of a young writer with tremendous skill as he discovers, joyously, just what his words can do."
New York Times Book Review - Alice McDermott
"A thoroughly wonderful novel...[It] did two things no book had done for me in a long time: it made me feel good and it took me completely by surprise."
David Leavitt
"It was refreshing to find a young writer who didn't seem afraid of style, whose work was strongly voiced and vigorously plotted. And it didn't hurt that 'The Mysteries of Pittsburgh' provided a variation on the very familiar form: the novel of maturation, in which a nice young man has to declare his independence of an imposing father who happened, in this case, to be a gangster."
New Republic - Michael Gorra
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