A Model World and Other Stories: Amazon.ca: Michael Chabon: Books

Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

An exceptional collection of short stories follows Chabon's well received debut novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh . These subtly ironic tales have a brevity and clarity that allows Chabon's bittersweet observations to hit home. Understatement is Chabon's talent; using words economically, he deftly creates believable situations made remarkable by underlying twists of motivation and behavior. His vivid characters share the need to feel accepted and loved by others. In "S Angel" Ira, a drama student at UCLA, attends his favorite cousin Sheila's wedding and falls for a party guest named Carmen--an abrasive, unstable woman who is unresponsive to his flirtations. It's as much a surprise to the reader as to Ira when he realizes his true affections for Sheila. The unpredictability of love surfaces again in the dryly witty "Ocean Avenue," in which Bobby Lazar, an architect in Laguna Beach, runs into his ex-lover, Suzette, a painfully thin exercise fanatic, and finds he can't suppress his indefinable feelings for her, despite the chaos they bring to each other's lives. Chabon's characters manage to find joy amidst disappointment, and thus a sense of purpose.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

YA-- Originally published in The New Yorker and other magazines, these short stories are delightful in their portrayal of characters, the light irony of the situations, and the flow of the sentences. Chabon deftly paints humorously odd people floundering for fulfillment. In the first part, readers glide into a kaleidoscope of worlds--a Jewish wedding in Los Angeles; Laguna Beach with an estranged couple; Paris with an American do-gooder; Pittsburgh with a down-and-out baseball catcher, a disc jockey, and a blundering toy maker; and finally duplicity in academe. Chabon's stories will captivate creative writing students, students of literature, and casual readers alike. --Susan Callahan, R. E. Lee High School, Springfield, VA
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Customer Reviews

9 Reviews

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
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Average Customer Review

3.8 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)

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4.0 out of 5 stars The Lost World, Mar 29 2004

By

JR Pinto (New Jersey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Model World And Other (Paperback)

Michael Chabon is about as good a short story writer that you are going to find today. This is unfair because he is also America's best new novelist. Nobody has any business writing novels and short stories equally well. This is Chabon's first collection of short stories and it is not quite as good as his subsequent collection, Werewolves in Their Youth, but it is still excellent.

The book is divided in halves - A Model World and The Lost World. Ultimately, the second half of the book is better because it is a series of connected stories about Nathan Shapiro, a boy growing up and dealing with divorce.

If anyone is interested in the craft of short story writing, A Model World is a model collection.

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3.0 out of 5 stars Unhappily Ever After, Dec 3 2003

By

BJ Fraser (Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Model World And Other (Paperback)

To be honest, I don't read short stories very often; I'm a novel person usually. But I couldn't think of anything else to read and I'm a fan of Chabon's writing so I thought I'd give this a shot.

The first half of "Model World" almost made me wish I hadn't. It wasn't that the writing was poor, but every story seemed almost the same until in my mind they all blurred together. Some young, troubled man gets with some not-very-nice girl and nothing good comes of it. The only one that stood out in my mind was "Smoke", largely because I'm a baseball fan and so I found it more interesting than the others. I found the title story to be very confusing; it seemed funny to me that the runt of the litter was selected as the title piece.

The second part of the book, "The Lost World" is better. This is a series of short stories about the disintegrating Shapiro family, told from the eldest son Nathan's perspective. Here the continuity helps avoid the redundancy of the first part. Only the last story (again the title story for the second part) goes back to the much-repeated tale of Nathan getting with a not-so-nice girl on the night before she leaves town forever.

If you want happy endings, look somewhere else, there are none to be found here. Some people find that distressing, but I didn't mind. What I wish is that the author or publisher would have included some notes before the stories to give a little background on them. I found the introductions to the short stories in John Irving's "Saving Piggy Sneed" to provide a lot of insight into the stories and the author; it's sort of like the director's commentary on certain DVDs.

Anyway, the writing as always is flawless; Chabon's writing always makes me so jealous, because I will never EVER be that good. It also exposes my lack of a decent vocabulary, which I find, er...bad. ;-)

I would say that if you're a fan of Chabon, then go ahead and read this collection of stories. If you aren't then--like all the stories in the book--there will be no happy ending for you.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Great characters...not too happy, Dec 2 2002

By

A O Cazola (Toronto, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Model World And Other (Paperback)

I must say, I'm a huge Michael Chabon fan. His books are always filled with dynamic characters in fascinating situations, and A Model World is no different. But where some of his books have a more airy feel, the stories in this collection are dark. the underlying theme to almost every story in this colelction is family breakdown. the worlds in Chabon's book are certainly not the model that anyone would like to follow.

That being said, the writing is as strong as ever and the stories are engaging. From the dark, satirical humour of the first story, to the tense nail-chewing fear in the last, Chabon takes us on a ride.

Chabon is a writer who, in a rare case, is actually living up to his hype. Read A Model World; it's worth it.

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Most recent customer reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Each story seems unfinished
Michael Chabon is a very talented author, but you don't get the impression by reading this weak collection of stories. Each story is written with no apparent finale. Read more

Published on Jan 5 2002 by Sai Li

5.0 out of 5 stars Makes me want to write
There is something about really good short stories that makes me want to write. I am not looking at writing a novel that will define a generation, but a simple story. Read more