The acclaimed New York Times bestseller.
Author Biography: Michael Chabon was born in Washington, D.C. His first novel, The Mysteries o... read full description
reviews
Feb 10, 2008
Mark
rated it: 
So, I loved this book, and kind of wanted it to be my life, the way certain people I could name but won't feel about The Sun Also Rises. I was about fifty pages in, tops, before I found myself casting the movie in my head. (I deliberately avoided looking at the cast list until after I finished reading the book; thank god I did, I would have liked the book, I estimate, about 46% less had I know while reading it that Mena Suvari plays Phlox. Appalling.) Or, to be honest, imagining myself as the le
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Apr 11, 2009
Shelly
rated it: 
I, like tons of other goodreaders, wish we didn't have to give a book an entire star so really I rate this at a three and a half more than a four.
In any event, I know that I liked this book, I'm just not sure how much I liked it or why I liked it. I mean, if a book holds your attention to the point where you can finish it quickly and are interested in picking it up everyday does that by itself make it a great book? Or a really good book? Because this book was that for me. Then again, some More...
In any event, I know that I liked this book, I'm just not sure how much I liked it or why I liked it. I mean, if a book holds your attention to the point where you can finish it quickly and are interested in picking it up everyday does that by itself make it a great book? Or a really good book? Because this book was that for me. Then again, some More...
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Apr 05, 2008
Tung
rated it: 
My fourth Chabon work in a row after having read Final Solution, Model World, and Werewolves in their Youth in the past few weeks. Thankfully, this is the last of his early works for me to read, since I don’t know how much more unpolished Chabon I can take. Mysteries is Chabon’s first published work, his master’s thesis at Cal-Irvine. The book takes place in Pittsburgh at an unnamed college, and revolves around a college student named Art Bechstein whose father is a Jewish gangster. Art meets se
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Feb 06, 2008
Frederick
rated it:
This was Michael Chabon's first novel. He was in his early twenties when it was published. It was widely praised. While many of the critics focused on the sexual ambiguities of the main character, what Chabon clearly showed here was his gift, to this day undiminished, for giving architectural landscape a personality.
In every Chabon novel or story I've read, manmade structures give meaning to the characters' actions. If I exaggerate, then allow me to clarify what I'm saying. Are the charact More...
In every Chabon novel or story I've read, manmade structures give meaning to the characters' actions. If I exaggerate, then allow me to clarify what I'm saying. Are the charact More...
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Feb 13, 2008
Speedtribes
rated it:
This is what I call the "It was summer and we were young" school of youthful indiscretion and confused attempts at living the Full Life.
The story is filled to the max with sexual confusion, societal yearning and emotional tug of war between what the protagonist calls his beautiful god-like people -- all put together in a sleepy, yellow-warm and lyrical package.
I had a little difficulty buying into some of the situations and characters and I'm not entirely cert More...
The story is filled to the max with sexual confusion, societal yearning and emotional tug of war between what the protagonist calls his beautiful god-like people -- all put together in a sleepy, yellow-warm and lyrical package.
I had a little difficulty buying into some of the situations and characters and I'm not entirely cert More...
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Nov 12, 2007
Rebecca
rated it:
This book is my new personal favorite. Mostly because of this quote,
"Every woman is a volume of stories, a catalogue of movements, a spectacular array of images."
The other quotes I like are:
“There had been a time in high school, see, when I wrestled with the possibility that I might be gay, a torturous six-month culmination of years of unpopularity and girllessness. At night I lay in bed and coolly informed myself that I was gay and that I had better get u More...
"Every woman is a volume of stories, a catalogue of movements, a spectacular array of images."
The other quotes I like are:
“There had been a time in high school, see, when I wrestled with the possibility that I might be gay, a torturous six-month culmination of years of unpopularity and girllessness. At night I lay in bed and coolly informed myself that I was gay and that I had better get u More...
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Jan 02, 2008
Nikki
rated it:
I've read this book three times. I'm trying to decide exactly what it is that I love so much about it. Michael Chabon's writing style makes me long for such skill. I get an ache in my stomach reading his works and loving them so much and wishing his words could come from me. The characters in this book aren't wonderful people, but they are wonderfully real. Art's lack of self-confidence especially speaks to me. When Art falls in love with Arthur I fell in love with Arthur right along with hi
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Mar 06, 2007
Jake
rated it:
This book is incredibly evocative of the time right after college graduation - I just graduated in May of last year, and it still hits me now when I read it nine months later.
While the writing leaves a little to be desired, and some of the scenes are over the top, most readers would probably just write it off as an expected issue with an author's first novel. Some might argue that no real person talks like these characters do. To be perfectly honest, I know too many people who t More...
While the writing leaves a little to be desired, and some of the scenes are over the top, most readers would probably just write it off as an expected issue with an author's first novel. Some might argue that no real person talks like these characters do. To be perfectly honest, I know too many people who t More...
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Dec 17, 2009
Shea
rated it: 
I bought this book many years ago while actually in Pittsburgh. I was visiting a girlfriend who was living there, and shortly after my arrival I was unceremoniously dumped.
Browsing the street of the unfamiliar town I was supposed to spend the next 3 days in, I stumbled upon this book. Based on title alone it seemed an appropriate subject, given my recent circumstance. I imagined myself sitting and reading for days at a bench on the Monongahela, forlornly pondering life's intricaci More...
Browsing the street of the unfamiliar town I was supposed to spend the next 3 days in, I stumbled upon this book. Based on title alone it seemed an appropriate subject, given my recent circumstance. I imagined myself sitting and reading for days at a bench on the Monongahela, forlornly pondering life's intricaci More...
Aug 02, 2011
i do love michael chabon...
this book has been no different so far...this is his first novel and you can sort of tell...his language is a bit more self conscious and you can really feel him trying to impress you...the thing is, he does...
his command of linguistic expression is very very good...and his ability to weave multiple characters together and build their complexity through interaction is extremely effective and affecting...you never feel him losing control of the characters or t More...
this book has been no different so far...this is his first novel and you can sort of tell...his language is a bit more self conscious and you can really feel him trying to impress you...the thing is, he does...
his command of linguistic expression is very very good...and his ability to weave multiple characters together and build their complexity through interaction is extremely effective and affecting...you never feel him losing control of the characters or t More...
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Aug 26, 2007
Matt
rated it:
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaslessly back into the past."
A very good post-graduate summer novel that aspires to be The Great Gatsby if that novel were instead written by Philip Roth. Unlike The Great Gatsby, however, the Mysteries of Pittsburgh reaches a very unsatisfying end: the protagonist succeeds in destroying every aspect of his life without a even hint of redemption beyond the mere fact that he has lived to tell the tale. Chabon's writin More...
A very good post-graduate summer novel that aspires to be The Great Gatsby if that novel were instead written by Philip Roth. Unlike The Great Gatsby, however, the Mysteries of Pittsburgh reaches a very unsatisfying end: the protagonist succeeds in destroying every aspect of his life without a even hint of redemption beyond the mere fact that he has lived to tell the tale. Chabon's writin More...
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Jan 07, 2011
Osho
rated it:
An enjoyable early novel from Chabon. I enjoyed his language while in some moods finding it over the top. For example: "As she moved her hands and head in the still light evening, talking about herself, the pearls seemed to string and restring themselves on the invisible thread of her gestures" (p. 75). In some moods I admire this and in others it tires me. Throughout, I thought of Gatsby and wondered if this were a re-telling with variations. After reading other reviews, I think this
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Dec 30, 2009
Amanda
rated it:
To the matter at hand: The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon. Chabon is the author of one of the books on my top-ten-of-all-time list (which, by the way, I intend on writing about one of these days), The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. And as every good pageant queen knows, you shouldn't judge one contestant in comparison to another - each should be judged solely on the criteria set forth and how she rates, not on how she rates next to someone else. But as every good pageant que
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Apr 03, 2009
Jason
rated it:
This story of a recent college graduate exploring the person who he is and is to become in the summer before commencing work, is territory already covered. That being said, it has not been covered by someone with the pedigree of Michael Chabon, nor with the wit and wordplay that the author brings to all of his novels. Further complicating the plot is the fact that the character's father is a relatively important mob figure and that there is a fling, dare I say it, a predilection, towards homosex
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Jan 20, 2009
Patrick
rated it:
Chabon's first novel is very much a young man's pursuit of that mysterious state of grace that is adulthood postponed. A very quick, sexy, engaging read, this novel deals with Art Beckstein's struggle to reach an accord with "[his:] father, the gangster", his confused sexuality, the death of his mother, and whether and to what extent he should be made to suffer for his father's sins. There's a great deal of energy, and youthful whimsy--much of which is driven by the mystery of our past
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Jan 10, 2009
Jess
rated it:
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Jan 05, 2009
Perryville
rated it:
“Arthur had chosen this uppermost step, where the sun warmed our backs and wilted the lettuce of our sandwiches. And sitting very close beside him there, behind the Fine Arts Building, at the grassy bottom of one of Oakland’s hundred abrupt endings, I felt uncomfortable, extremely conscious of the seclusion and intimacy of our perch and of the distinct possibility that he had brought me here to broach again, as he might say, a delicate subject. I decided to reiterate my position at some poi
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Dec 23, 2011
VacantMath
rated it:
Michael Chabon’s The Mysteries of Pittsburgh is the story of Art Bechstein’s first summer after college.
The novel shows how much somebody’s life can change in three months. Art meets people in June and has seen them at their core in August. He watches the crumbling of the barriers and walls he’s spent years building for protection through isolation, and is helpless when the various intruders collide. He falls in and out of -- what he calls -- love numerous times, and with numerous peo More...
The novel shows how much somebody’s life can change in three months. Art meets people in June and has seen them at their core in August. He watches the crumbling of the barriers and walls he’s spent years building for protection through isolation, and is helpless when the various intruders collide. He falls in and out of -- what he calls -- love numerous times, and with numerous peo More...
Nov 14, 2011
Daniel
rated it:
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon, Harper Perennial, New York, 2005
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, first novel by young author Michael Chabon, is a coming of age story that tells the tale of Art Bechstein, a recent college graduate trying to find his way the summer before entering the real world. Art I unsure of where he wants to go in life and determined to distance himself from his family. His father is a Jewish money launderer and gangster, a fact that brings Art deep feeli More...
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, first novel by young author Michael Chabon, is a coming of age story that tells the tale of Art Bechstein, a recent college graduate trying to find his way the summer before entering the real world. Art I unsure of where he wants to go in life and determined to distance himself from his family. His father is a Jewish money launderer and gangster, a fact that brings Art deep feeli More...
Nov 13, 2011
Jeffrey
rated it:
I picked this one up at my local bookstore because it is another Michael Chabon novel set in Pittsburgh. Those of us who grew up in Western Pennsylvania will read just about anything that deals with the region. Although this novel was written before Wonder Boys, and it seems to reflect a younger sensability than the later book, still the grittiness of Pittsburgh is brought out nicely. I particularly liked the reference to a "cloud factory" that was in a deep ravine next to the Carne
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Aug 26, 2011
Barbara
rated it:
Many folks that I know have been sucking Chabon's literary dick for a while now. I picked up Wonder Boys a few years back, and okay, yes, he's a strong writer. I'll gladly admit that the man really knows how to string a sentence together. Overall, though, I can't say that he was particularly resonant with me. The themes, the characters, even the tone of voice - nothing really rang out with genius. I thought that maybe he's only popular because he's from Pittsburgh, and most of the people I know
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Aug 19, 2011
Henry
rated it:
So I think I can now safely say Michael Chabon is my favorite "modern lit" author, as I have adored all three of the books of his that I have read. This one, his first novel, is a bit less epic in scope and theme, but in a way I found its memoir-like narrative to be more compelling on a personal level.
It's a mashup of two great (IMO) ingredients: young adult post-college-graduation passion/ennui (e.g. The Graduate), and subtle homoeroticism (e.g. The Adventures of Cavalier More...
It's a mashup of two great (IMO) ingredients: young adult post-college-graduation passion/ennui (e.g. The Graduate), and subtle homoeroticism (e.g. The Adventures of Cavalier More...
Jun 06, 2011
Ben
rated it:
There's something bittersweet about delving into a favourite author's early work. It's pretty exciting to see how an author has grown over the years; what talents they always had, what weaknesses they have or haven't lost, which aspects were seeded long before they were developed.
But on the other, more emotive and less rational, hand; what tainted greatness, how boringly humanising, how utterly demythologising. I mean, it's really comfortable to believe that greatness is something sepa More...
But on the other, more emotive and less rational, hand; what tainted greatness, how boringly humanising, how utterly demythologising. I mean, it's really comfortable to believe that greatness is something sepa More...
Apr 06, 2011
Kraig
rated it:
This is the second novel I have read from Michael Chabon, the first being Wonder Boys. Walking into Chabon’s first novel, “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh” which was written when we has 21. I was excited to see what it would be like!
I found myself once again caught by this authors irrevocably immense talent in creating a world of confusion and out of this world almost unbelievable happenings that angered and made me question the believability of the novel while at the same time drawing More...
I found myself once again caught by this authors irrevocably immense talent in creating a world of confusion and out of this world almost unbelievable happenings that angered and made me question the believability of the novel while at the same time drawing More...
Apr 06, 2011
Brendan
rated it:
Make no mistake about it; Michael Chabon’s 1988 coming-of-age tale “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh” is well-written and witty, especially when considering that Chabon was only the tender age of 24 when the novel was published.
Chabon’s obvious talent level at such a young age is enough to make any upcoming writer a bit insecure, but it is not the art of writing that Chabon truly conquers early in his career: it is his self-insight and unrelenting bravery.
In Mysteries (publis More...
Chabon’s obvious talent level at such a young age is enough to make any upcoming writer a bit insecure, but it is not the art of writing that Chabon truly conquers early in his career: it is his self-insight and unrelenting bravery.
In Mysteries (publis More...
Dec 17, 2010
Jeff
rated it:
An excellent first sentence (with maybe the best use of an appositive phrase I've ever seen): "At the beginning of the summer I had lunch with my father, the gangster, who was in town for the weekend to transact some of his vague business." In my opinion, much better than Chabon's originally drafted first sentence, which ended up in this slightly different form on the final printed page two: "Then he asked me what my plans were for the summer, and in the flush of some strong emoti
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Sep 24, 2010
Matt
rated it:
Though I don't quite remember it, I have read Michael Chabon's "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" before. Back in high school, glued to a simple wooden chair with an unusually high back, stuck to the seat by the sheer force of my professor's words concerning the genius of Michael Chabon, I read this book. The reading occurred mainly in that room, room 14 of a building that no longer sees panicked, pimply and altogether presumptuous post-pubertal partisans pacing that productive penitentiary
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Aug 15, 2010
Parksy
rated it:
Quick read, enjoyed it, but didn't love it.
GANGSTERS AND PRANKSTERS
Date: April 3, 1988, Sunday, Late City Final Edition Section 7; Page 7, Column 1; Book Review Desk
Byline: By ALICE MCDERMOTT; Alice McDermott is the author of the novels ''A Bigamist's Daughter'' and ''That Night.''
Lead: LEAD: THE MYSTERIES OF PITTSBURGH By Michael Chabon. 297 pp. New York: William Morrow & Company. $16.95.
Text:
THE MYSTERIES OF PITTSBURGH By Michael Chabon. 297 pp. New Yo More...
GANGSTERS AND PRANKSTERS
Date: April 3, 1988, Sunday, Late City Final Edition Section 7; Page 7, Column 1; Book Review Desk
Byline: By ALICE MCDERMOTT; Alice McDermott is the author of the novels ''A Bigamist's Daughter'' and ''That Night.''
Lead: LEAD: THE MYSTERIES OF PITTSBURGH By Michael Chabon. 297 pp. New York: William Morrow & Company. $16.95.
Text:
THE MYSTERIES OF PITTSBURGH By Michael Chabon. 297 pp. New Yo More...
Aug 12, 2010
Clark
rated it:
"I felt trapped, though I wasn't exactly certain of how; I no longer had a clear impression of where the alliances and fissures lay among the people I knew, of who stood on which side of me and in what relation; which was tantamount, when you consider it, to my forgetting who I was."
I have to give credit to Chabon for getting his character to this point. When you think about that time when you first really enter the world, whether it's right after college or at some other p More...
I have to give credit to Chabon for getting his character to this point. When you think about that time when you first really enter the world, whether it's right after college or at some other p More...
Jul 17, 2010
One of the dangers of picking up a new author is that you’ll like them SO MUCH you have to read all that person’s other novels, too. At worst (or best) this can be a prolific writer like Graham Greene, who took me years to catch up with. I’m finally caught up on Michael Chabon now, but ran into some diminishing returns with his first book.
Recent college graduate Art faces the prospect of a summer’s freedom. He makes friends with cool, polished Arthur, who introduces him to ex-punk, More...
Recent college graduate Art faces the prospect of a summer’s freedom. He makes friends with cool, polished Arthur, who introduces him to ex-punk, More...
