135-608: Michael Chabon ( / ˈ ʃ eɪ b ɒ n / SHAY -bon ; born May 24, 1963) is an American novelist, screenwriter, columnist, and short story writer. Born in Washington, D.C. , he spent a year studying at Carnegie Mellon University before transferring to the University of Pittsburgh , graduating in 1984. He subsequently received a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of California, Irvine . Chabon's first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (1988),
270-460: A Master of Fine Arts in creative writing. Chabon's first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh , was written as his UC Irvine master's thesis. Without telling Chabon, his professor, Donald Heiney (better known by his pen name, MacDonald Harris), sent it to a literary agent, who got the author an impressive $ 155,000 advance on the novel, though most first-time novelists receive advances under $ 7,500. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh appeared in 1988 and
405-546: A bachelor's degree prior to admission, but many institutions do not require that the candidate's undergraduate major conform with their proposed path of study in the MFA program. Admissions requirements often consist of a sample portfolio of artworks or a performance audition . The Master of Fine Arts differs from the Master of Arts in that the MFA, while still an academic program, centers-on professional artistic practice in
540-495: A cascading waterfall with Italian Renaissance -style architecture. Modern , Postmodern , contemporary , and other non-classical architectural styles are also seen in the city. The National Museum of African American History and Culture deeply contrasts the stone-based neoclassical buildings on the National Mall with a design that combines modern engineering with heavy inspiration from African art . The interior of
675-486: A 2023 population of 6.3 million residents. A locally elected mayor and 13-member council have governed the district since 1973, though Congress retains the power to overturn local laws. Washington, D.C., residents are, on the federal level, politically disenfranchised since the city's residents do not have voting representation in Congress; the city's residents elect a single non-voting congressional delegate to
810-558: A TV series pilot that Chabon was asked to write in 1999, is a social novel set on the borders between Oakland and Berkeley in the summer of 2004 that sees a "large cast of characters grapple with infidelity, fatherhood, crooked politicians, racism, nostalgia and buried secrets." Chabon said upon publication in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle that the novel concerns "the possibility and impossibility of creating shared community spaces that attempt to transcend
945-605: A book-length work of non-fiction called Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son , was published in spring 2009 (2010 in Europe); the work discusses "being a man in all its complexity—a son, a father, a husband." The collection was nominated for a 2010 Northern California Book Award in the Creative Nonfiction category. This was Chabon's second published collection of essays and non-fiction. McSweeney's published Maps and Legends ,
1080-624: A bookstore stocking August Van Zorn books. Chabon has provided several subtle hints throughout his work that the stories he tells take place in a shared fictional universe. One recurring character, who is mentioned in three of Chabon's books but never actually appears, is Eli Drinkwater, a fictional catcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates who died abruptly after crashing his car on Mt. Nebo Road. The most detailed exposition of Drinkwater's life appears in Chabon's 1990 short story "Smoke", which
1215-487: A center of the nation's internal slave trade . After its survey, the new federal city was constructed on the north bank of the Potomac River, to the east of Georgetown centered on Capitol Hill . On September 9, 1791, three commissioners overseeing the capital's construction named the city in honor of President Washington. The same day, the federal district was named Columbia, a feminine form of Columbus , which
1350-504: A character in Chabon's 1988 debut novel , The Mysteries of Pittsburgh , is described as having come from a wealthy family, one that might be expected to be able to endow a building. Near the end of Wonder Boys (1995), it is mentioned that, on the unnamed college campus at which Grady Tripp teaches, there is a building called Arning Hall "where the English faculty kept office hours." Similarly, in Chabon's 1989 short story "A Model World",
1485-532: A character named Levine discovers, or rather plagiarizes, a formula for "nephokinesis" (or cloud control) that wins him respect and prominence in the meteorological field. In The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000), a passing reference is made to the "massive Levine School of Applied Meteorology," ostensibly a building owned by New York University . In 2014, Chabon was involved in writing lyrics for Mark Ronson 's album Uptown Special . In an interview with WCBN-FM , Chabon described meeting Ronson at
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#17327913144751620-596: A collection of Chabon's literary essays, on May 1, 2008. Proceeds from the book benefited 826 National . Also in 2008, Chabon received the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award , presented annually by the Tulsa (Oklahoma) Library Trust . During a 2007 interview with the Washington Post , Chabon discussed his second book under the contract, saying, "I would like it to be set in the present day and feel right now
1755-566: A collection of short stories by Van Zorn titled The Abominations of Plunkettsburg . (The name "Leon Chaim Bach" is an anagram of "Michael Chabon", as is "Malachi B. Cohen", the name of a fictional comics expert who wrote occasional essays about the Escapist for the character's Dark Horse Comic series.) In 2004, Chabon established the August Van Zorn Prize, "awarded to the short story that most faithfully and disturbingly embodies
1890-606: A collection of short stories, many of which were previously published in The New Yorker . After the success of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh , Chabon spent five years working on a second novel, Fountain City , a "highly ambitious opus ... about an architect building a perfect baseball park in Florida." It ballooned to 1,500 pages, with no end in sight. The process was frustrating for Chabon, who, in his words, "never felt like I
2025-428: A day. Commenting on the rigidity of his routine, Chabon said, "There have been plenty of self-destructive rebel-angel novelists over the years, but writing is about getting your work done and getting your work done every day. If you want to write novels, they take a long time, and they're big, and they have a lot of words in them.... The best environment, at least for me, is a very stable, structured kind of life." Chabon
2160-469: A federal town". In Federalist No. 43 , published January 23, 1788, James Madison argued that the new federal government would need authority over a national capital to provide for its own maintenance and safety. The Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783 emphasized the need for the national government not to rely on any state for its own security. Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution permits
2295-465: A fictionalized memoir of his maternal grandfather, based on his deathbed confessions under the influence of powerful painkillers in Chabon's mother's California home in 1989. Chabon's work is characterized by complex language, and the frequent use of metaphor along with recurring themes such as nostalgia, divorce, abandonment, fatherhood, and most notably issues of Jewish identity . He often includes gay, bisexual, and Jewish characters in his work. Since
2430-408: A garden-lined grand avenue about 1 mile (1.6 km) long and 400 feet (120 m) wide in an area that is now the National Mall inspired by the grounds at Versailles and Tuileries Gardens. In March 1792, President Washington dismissed L'Enfant due to conflicts with the three commissioners appointed to supervise the capital's construction. Andrew Ellicott , who worked with L'Enfant in surveying
2565-412: A lawyer. Chabon said he knew he wanted to be a writer when, at the age of ten, he wrote his first short story for a class assignment. When the story received an A, he recalls, "I thought to myself, 'That's it. That's what I want to do. I can do this.' And I never had any second thoughts or doubts." Referring to popular culture, he wrote of being raised "on a hearty diet of crap". His parents divorced when he
2700-428: A little metal pipe back and forth before we went in to see a movie." He grew up hearing Yiddish spoken by his mother's parents and siblings. Chabon attended Carnegie Mellon University for a year before transferring to the University of Pittsburgh , where he studied under Chuck Kinder and received a Bachelor of Arts in 1984. He then went to graduate school at the University of California, Irvine , where he received
2835-418: A magazine because the weather's so nice where you live.' " In 2001, Chabon reflected on the success of his first novel by saying that while "the upside was that I was published and I got a readership, ... [the] downside ... was that, emotionally, this stuff started happening and I was still like, 'Wait a minute, is my thesis done yet?' It took me a few years to catch up." In 1991, he published A Model World ,
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#17327913144752970-502: A modern glass exterior and heavy curvature. CityCenterDC is home to Palmer Alley, a pedestrian-only walkway, and houses several apartment buildings, restaurants, and luxury-brand storefronts with streamlined glass and metal facades. Outside Downtown D.C., architectural styles are more varied. Historic buildings are designed primarily in the Queen Anne , Châteauesque , Richardsonian Romanesque , Georgian Revival , Beaux-Arts , and
3105-439: A new novel. In 2000, he published The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay , an epic historical novel that charts 16 years in the lives of Sammy Clay and Joe Kavalier, two Jewish cousins who create a wildly popular series of comic books in the early 1940s, the years leading up to the entry of the U.S. into World War II. The novel received "nearly unanimous praise" and became a New York Times Best Seller , eventually winning
3240-548: A party, and later being contacted to write a song. Chabon penned "Crack in the Pearl", and after growing chemistry with Ronson and Jeff Bhasker , worked on more songs for the album. One of these included the single "Daffodils", which he wrote with Kevin Parker of Tame Impala . In total, Chabon helped write 9 of the 11 songs on the album, not including mega-smash hit, " Uptown Funk ". He has also collaborated with Adam Schlesinger on
3375-446: A publisher. Hundreds of authors, Chabon included, condemned Amazon in an open letter because Amazon stopped taking pre-orders for books published by Hachette. After the publication of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh , Chabon was mistakenly featured in a Newsweek article on up-and-coming gay writers ( Pittsburgh ' s protagonist has liaisons with people of both sexes). The New York Times later reported that "in some ways, [Chabon]
3510-431: A relatively high homelessness rate, despite its high living standard compared to many American cities. Washington, D.C., is divided into four quadrants of unequal area: Northwest (NW) , Northeast (NE) , Southeast (SE) , and Southwest (SW) . The axes bounding the quadrants radiate from the U.S. Capitol. All road names include the quadrant abbreviation to indicate their location. House numbers generally correspond with
3645-421: A sequel—to Summerland , my book for a somewhat younger readership. It's something I've been trying to get around to for a long time." Despite his success, Chabon continues to perceive himself as a "failure", noting that "anyone who has ever received a bad review knows how it outlasts, by decades, the memory of a favorable word." In 2014, Amazon.com , a leading book distributor, was in a dispute with Hachette ,
3780-595: A snowstorm in January 1772. Hurricanes or their remnants occasionally impact the area in late summer and early fall. However, they usually are weak by the time they reach Washington, partly due to the city's inland location. Flooding of the Potomac River , however, caused by a combination of high tide, storm surge, and runoff, has been known to cause extensive property damage in the Georgetown neighborhood of
3915-676: A special committee charged with beautifying Washington's ceremonial core. What became known as the McMillan Plan was finalized in 1901 and included relandscaping the Capitol grounds and the National Mall, clearing slums, and establishing a new citywide park system. The plan is thought to have largely preserved L'Enfant's intended design for the city. By law, the city's skyline is low and sprawling. The federal Height of Buildings Act of 1910 prohibits buildings with height exceeding
4050-486: A tendency toward melodrama, trying to end it all." He began writing, and within a couple of days had written 50 pages of what became his second novel, Wonder Boys . Chabon drew on his experiences with Fountain City for the character of Grady Tripp, a frustrated novelist who has spent years working on an immense fourth novel. He wrote Wonder Boys in a dizzy seven-month streak, without telling his agent or publisher he'd abandoned Fountain City . The book, published in 1995,
4185-473: A variety of Victorian styles. Rowhouses are prominent in areas developed after the Civil War and typically follow Federal and late Victorian designs. Georgetown 's Old Stone House , built in 1765, is the oldest-standing building in the city. Founded in 1789, Georgetown University features a mix of Romanesque and Gothic Revival architecture . The Ronald Reagan Building is the largest building in
Michael Chabon - Misplaced Pages Continue
4320-468: Is a graduate degree that typically requires two to three years of postgraduate study after a bachelor's degree , though the term of study varies by country or university. Coursework is primarily of an applied or performing nature, with the program often culminating in a thesis exhibition or performance . The first university to admit students to the degree of Master of Fine Arts was the University of Iowa in 1940. A candidate for an MFA typically holds
4455-504: Is a significant "unification" of his earlier and later styles, declaring in an interview, "I could do whatever I wanted to do in this book and it would be OK even if it verged on crime fiction, even if it verged on magic realism, even if it verged on martial arts fiction.... I was open to all of that and yet I didn't have to repudiate or steer away from the naturalistic story about two families living their everyday lives and coping with pregnancy and birth and adultery and business failure and all
4590-911: Is generally popular among tourists and locals. In 2007, six of the top ten buildings in the American Institute of Architects ' ranking of America's Favorite Architecture were in the city: the White House , Washington National Cathedral , the Jefferson Memorial , the United States Capitol , the Lincoln Memorial , and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial . The neoclassical , Georgian , Gothic , and Modern styles are reflected among these six structures and many other prominent edifices in
4725-559: Is literature in mid-transformation.... [T]he highbrow and the lowbrow, once kept chastely separate, are now hooking up, [and] you can almost see the future of literature coming." Grossman classed Chabon with a movement of authors similarly eager to blend literary and popular writing, including Jonathan Lethem (with whom Chabon is friends), Margaret Atwood , and Susanna Clarke . On the other hand, in Slate in 2007, Ruth Franklin said, "Michael Chabon has spent considerable energy trying to drag
4860-407: Is set at Drinkwater's funeral, and refers to him as "a scholarly catcher, a redoubtable batsman, and a kind, affectionate person." Drinkwater was again referred to (though not by name) in Chabon's 1995 novel Wonder Boys , in which narrator Grady Tripp explains that his sportswriter friend Happy Blackmore was hired "to ghost the autobiography of a catcher, a rising star who played for Pittsburgh and hit
4995-534: Is that "Entertainment ... means junk.... [But] maybe the reason for the junkiness of so much of what pretends to entertain us is that we have accepted—indeed, we have helped to articulate—such a narrow, debased concept of entertainment.... I'd like to believe that, because I read for entertainment, and I write to entertain. Period." One of the more positive responses to Chabon's brand of "trickster literature" appeared in Time magazine, whose Lev Grossman wrote that "This
5130-461: Is time for him to move on, to break away from the first person and explore larger worlds." Chabon later said that he took Yardley's criticism to heart, explaining, "It chimed with my own thoughts. I had bigger ambitions." In 1999 he published his second collection of short stories, Werewolves in Their Youth , which included his first published foray into genre fiction , the grim horror story "In
5265-501: Is water. The district is bordered by Montgomery County, Maryland , to the northwest; Prince George's County, Maryland , to the east; Arlington County, Virginia , to the west; and Alexandria, Virginia , to the south. The south bank of the Potomac River forms the district's border with Virginia and has two major tributaries, the Anacostia River and Rock Creek . Tiber Creek , a natural watercourse that once passed through
5400-633: The American Civil War in 1861 led to the expansion of the federal government and notable growth in the city's population, including a large influx of freed slaves. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Compensated Emancipation Act in 1862, which ended slavery in the district, freeing about 3,100 slaves in the district nine months before the Emancipation Proclamation . In 1868, Congress granted
5535-435: The Anacostia River to the east. Washington, D.C.'s street grid was extended, where possible, throughout the district starting in 1888. Georgetown's streets were renamed in 1895. Some streets are particularly noteworthy, including Pennsylvania Avenue , which connects the White House to the Capitol; and K Street, which houses the offices of many lobbying groups. Constitution Avenue and Independence Avenue , located on
Michael Chabon - Misplaced Pages Continue
5670-544: The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park , the National Mall and Memorial Parks , Theodore Roosevelt Island , Columbia Island , Fort Dupont Park , Meridian Hill Park , Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens , and Anacostia Park . The District of Columbia Department of Parks and Recreation maintains the city's 900 acres (3.6 km ) of athletic fields and playgrounds, 40 swimming pools, and 68 recreation centers. The U.S. Department of Agriculture operates
5805-584: The House of Representatives in 2021 but was not adopted by the U.S. Senate . To become law it would have to be passed by the Senate and signed by president; it would have renamed the city Washington, Douglas Commonwealth and shrunk the Federal District to about the size of the national mall. Designed in 1791 by Pierre Charles L'Enfant , the city is divided into quadrants , which are centered around
5940-654: The Hugo , Sidewise , Nebula and Ignotus awards; his serialized novel Gentlemen of the Road appeared in book form in the fall of the same year. In 2012, Chabon published Telegraph Avenue , billed as "a twenty-first century Middlemarch ", concerning the tangled lives of two families in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2004. He followed Telegraph Avenue in November 2016 with his latest novel, Moonglow ,
6075-628: The International Monetary Fund , the Organization of American States , and other international organizations. Home to many of the nation's largest industry associations, non-profit organizations, and think tanks , D.C. is known as a lobbying hub, with K Street as the industry center. The city had 20.7 million domestic visitors and 1.2 million international visitors, ranking seventh among U.S. cities as of 2022. The Algonquian -speaking Piscataway people , also known as
6210-536: The National Mall , was fully enclosed underground during the 1870s. The creek also formed a portion of the now-filled Washington City Canal , which allowed passage through the city to the Anacostia River from 1815 until the 1850s. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal starts in Georgetown and was used during the 19th century to bypass the Little Falls of the Potomac River, located at the northwest edge of
6345-497: The New York Review of Books in 2005, Chabon remarked on the autobiographical events that helped inspire his first novel: "I had slept with one man whom I loved, and learned to love another man so much that it would never have occurred to me to want to sleep with him." In 1987, Chabon married the poet Lollie Groth. According to Chabon, the popularity of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh had adverse effects; he later explained, "I
6480-833: The New York Times in June 2010 in which he noted the role of exceptionalism in Jewish identity, in relation to the "blockheadedness" of Israel's botching of the Gaza flotilla raid and the explanations that followed. Pops: Fatherhood in Pieces was published in May 2018. Pops is a short non-fiction memoir/essay collection, the essays thematically linked by the rewards and challenges of various aspects of fatherhood and family. Chabon's next non-fiction book, Bookends: Collected Intros and Outros ,
6615-623: The Washington Metro stations and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden are designed with strong influence from the 20th-century Brutalism movement. The Smithsonian Institution Building is built of Seneca red sandstone in the Norman Revival style. The Old Post Office building, located on Pennsylvania Avenue and completed in 1899, was the first building in the city to have a steel frame structure and
6750-607: The White House , the Capitol, the Supreme Court Building , and multiple federal departments and agencies . The city is home to many national monuments and museums , located most prominently on or around the National Mall , including the Jefferson Memorial , the Lincoln Memorial , and the Washington Monument . It hosts 177 foreign embassies and serves as the headquarters for the World Bank ,
6885-588: The X-Men and Fantastic Four films, but was rejected. Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C. , formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C. , is the capital city and federal district of the United States . The city is on the Potomac River , across from Virginia , and shares land borders with Maryland to its north and east. It was named after George Washington ,
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#17327913144757020-644: The "swashbuckling adventure" of Gentlemen of the Road —have been almost exclusively devoted to mixing aspects of genre and literary fiction. Perhaps the most notable example of this is The Yiddish Policemen's Union , which won five genre awards, including the Hugo Award and Nebula Award . Chabon seeks to "annihilate" not the genres themselves, but the bias against certain genres of fiction such as fantasy, science fiction and romance. Chabon's forays into genre fiction have met with mixed critical reaction. One science fiction short story by Chabon, "The Martian Agent",
7155-545: The 1830s, the district's southern territory of Alexandria declined economically, due in part to its neglect by Congress. Alexandria was a major market in the domestic slave trade and pro-slavery residents feared that abolitionists in Congress would end slavery in the district . Alexandria's citizens petitioned Virginia to retake the land it had donated to form the district, a process known as retrocession . The Virginia General Assembly voted in February 1846, to accept
7290-429: The 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction . Chabon reflected that, in writing Kavalier & Clay , "I discovered strengths I had hoped that I possessed—the ability to pull off multiple points of view, historical settings, the passage of years—but which had never been tested before." In 2002, Chabon published Summerland , a fantasy novel written for younger readers that received mixed reviews but sold extremely well, and won
7425-458: The 2003 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award . Two years later, he published The Final Solution , a novella 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 Dark Horse Comics project The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist , a quarterly anthology series that was published from 2004 to 2006, purported to cull stories from an involved, fictitious 60-year history of
7560-472: The 446-acre (1.80 km ) United States National Arboretum in Northeast Washington, D.C. Washington's climate is humid subtropical ( Köppen : Cfa ), or oceanic ( Trewartha : Do bordering Cf downtown). Winters are cool to cold with some snow of varying intensity, while summers are hot and humid. The district is in plant hardiness zone 8a near downtown, and zone 7b elsewhere in
7695-535: The 9,122 acres (36.92 km ) of city land owned by the U.S. government. Rock Creek Park is a 1,754-acre (7.10 km ) urban forest in Northwest Washington, which extends 9.3 miles (15.0 km) through a stream valley that bisects the city. Established in 1890, it is the country's fourth-oldest national park and is home to a variety of plant and animal species, including raccoon, deer, owls, and coyotes. Other National Park Service properties include
7830-521: The Black Mill". Shortly after completing Wonder Boys , Chabon discovered a box of comic books from his childhood; a reawakened interest in comics, coupled with memories of the "lore" his Brooklyn -born father had told him about "the middle years of the twentieth century in America. ...the radio shows, politicians, movies, music, and athletes, and so forth, of that era," inspired him to begin work on
7965-641: The Canadas , the British set fire to government buildings in the city, gutting the United States Capitol , the Treasury Building , and the White House in what became known as the burning of Washington . However, a storm forced the British to evacuate the city after just 24 hours. Most government buildings were repaired quickly, but the Capitol, which was largely under construction at the time, would not be completed in its current form until 1868. In
8100-488: The Capitol Building and include 131 neighborhoods . As of the 2020 census , the city had a population of 689,545. Commuters from the city's Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the city's daytime population to more than one million during the workweek. The Washington metropolitan area , which includes parts of Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia , is the country's seventh-largest metropolitan area , with
8235-462: The City of Washington in 1895. However, the city had poor housing and strained public works, leading it to become the first city in the nation to undergo urban renewal projects as part of the City Beautiful movement in the early 20th century. The City Beautiful movement built heavily upon the already-implemented L'Enfant Plan , with the new McMillan Plan leading urban development in
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#17327913144758370-521: The Conoy, inhabited the lands around the Potomac River and present-day Washington, D.C., when Europeans first arrived and colonized the region in the early 17th century. The Nacotchtank , also called the Nacostines by Catholic missionaries , maintained settlements around the Anacostia River in present-day Washington, D.C. Conflicts with European colonists and neighboring tribes ultimately displaced
8505-517: The Escapist character created by the protagonists of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay . It was awarded the 2005 Eisner Award for Best Anthology and a pair of Harvey Awards for Best Anthology and Best New Series. In late 2006, Chabon completed work on Gentlemen of the Road , a 15-part serialized novel that ran in The New York Times Magazine from January 28 to May 6, 2007. The serial (which at one point had
8640-629: The Occupation , a non-fiction collection of essays by writers concerning the continued Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, featuring contributions from writers including Dave Eggers, Colum McCann, and Geraldine Brooks. Chabon co-edited the volume with Ayelet Waldman, and they both contributed essays to the collection. Chabon had previously weighed in on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2010, having written an op-ed piece for
8775-645: The Piscataway people, some of whom established a new settlement in 1699 near Point of Rocks, Maryland . Nine cities served as capitals to the Continental Congress and under the Articles of Confederation . New York City was the first capital upon the adoption of the Constitution , succeeded by Philadelphia , which was capital from 1790 to 1800. On October 6, 1783, after the capital
8910-542: The U.S. House of Representatives. The city's voters choose three presidential electors in accordance with the Twenty-third Amendment , passed in 1961. Washington, D.C. anchors the southern end of the Northeast megalopolis . As the seat of the U.S. federal government , the city is an important world political capital . The city hosts the buildings that house federal government headquarters, including
9045-477: The United States than if he said he was going to take them all out to be shot. He's like a random impulse generator." In a 2017 radio interview, Chabon spoke of Trump: "Every morning I wake up and in the seconds before I turn my phone on to see what the latest news is, I have this boundless sense of optimism and hope that this is the day that he's going to have a massive stroke, and, you know, be carted out of
9180-814: The White House on a gurney." In a 2002 essay, Chabon decried the state of modern short fiction (including his own), saying that, with rare exceptions, it consisted solely of "the contemporary, quotidian, plotless, moment-of-truth revelatory story." In an apparent reaction against these "plotless [stories] sparkling with epiphanic dew," Chabon's post-2000 work has been marked by an increased interest in genre fiction and plot. While The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay was, like The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and Wonder Boys , an essentially realistic, contemporary novel (whose plot happened to revolve around comic-book superheroes), Chabon's subsequent works—such as The Final Solution , his dabbling with comic-book writing, and
9315-504: The area. Blizzards affect Washington once every four to six years on average. The most violent storms, known as nor'easters , often impact large regions of the East Coast . From January 27 to 28, 1922 , the city officially received 28 inches (71 cm) of snowfall, the largest snowstorm since official measurements began in 1885. According to notes kept at the time, the city received between 30 and 36 inches (76 and 91 cm) from
9450-521: The biography; the character Jennifer T. mentions that she has read a book called Eli Drinkwater: A Life in Baseball , written by Happy Blackmore. Drinkwater's name may have been selected in homage to contemporary author John Crowley , whom Chabon is on the record as admiring. Crowley's novel Little, Big featured a main character named Alice Drinkwater. There are also instances in which character surnames reappear from story to story. Cleveland Arning,
9585-476: The borders of the federal district and placed boundary stones at every mile point; many of these stones are still standing. Both Maryland and Virginia were slave states , and slavery existed in the District from its founding. The building of Washington likely relied in significant part on slave labor, and slave receipts have been found for the White House, Capitol Building, and establishment of Georgetown University. The city became an important slave market and
9720-462: The city , primarily in the U ;Street, 14th Street, 7th Street, and H Street corridors, which were predominantly black residential and commercial areas. The riots raged for three days until more than 13,600 federal troops and Washington, D.C., Army National Guardsmen stopped the violence. Many stores and other buildings were burned, and rebuilding from the riots was not completed until
9855-480: The city at the Atlantic Seaboard fall line . The highest natural elevation in the district is 409 feet (125 m) above sea level at Fort Reno Park in upper northwest Washington, D.C. The lowest point is sea level at the Potomac River. The geographic center of Washington is near the intersection of 4th and L streets NW. The district has 7,464 acres (30.21 km ) of parkland, about 19% of
9990-490: The city but bankrupted its government. In 1874, Congress replaced the territorial government with an appointed three-member board of commissioners. In 1888, the city's first motorized streetcars began service. Their introduction generated growth in areas of the district beyond the City of Washington's original boundaries, leading to an expansion of the district over the next few decades. Georgetown's street grid and other administrative details were formally merged with those of
10125-819: The city throughout the movement. Much of the old Victorian Mall was replaced with modern Neoclassical and Beaux-Arts architecture ; these designs are still prevalent in the city's governmental buildings today. Increased federal spending under the New Deal in the 1930s led to the construction of new government buildings, memorials, and museums in the district, though the chairman of the House Subcommittee on District Appropriations, Ross A. Collins of Mississippi , justified cuts to funds for welfare and education for local residents by saying that "my constituents wouldn't stand for spending money on niggers." World War II led to an expansion of federal employees in
10260-730: The city's classical-style architecture include buildings constructed in the French Second Empire style, including the Eisenhower Executive Office Building , and the modernist Watergate complex . The Thomas Jefferson Building , the main Library of Congress building, and the historic Willard Hotel are built in Beaux-Arts style , popular throughout the world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Meridian Hill Park contains
10395-416: The city's total area, the second-highest among high-density U.S. cities after Philadelphia . The city's sizable parkland was a factor in the city being ranked as third in the nation for park access and quality in the 2018 ParkScore ranking of the park systems of the nation's 100 most populous cities, according to Trust for Public Land , a non-profit organization. The National Park Service manages most of
10530-421: The city, was then tasked with completing its design. Though Ellicott revised the original L'Enfant plans, including changing some street patterns, L'Enfant is still credited with the city's overall design. By the early 20th century, however, L'Enfant's vision of a grand national capital was marred by slums and randomly placed buildings in the city, including a railroad station on the National Mall. Congress formed
10665-408: The city. Summers are hot and humid with a July daily average of 79.8 °F (26.6 °C) and average daily relative humidity around 66%, which can cause moderate personal discomfort. Heat indices regularly approach 100 °F (38 °C) at the height of summer. The combination of heat and humidity in the summer brings very frequent thunderstorms, some of which occasionally produce tornadoes in
10800-530: The city. Many of the government buildings, monuments, and museums along the National Mall and surrounding areas are heavily inspired by classical Roman and Greek architecture. The designs of the White House, the U.S. Capitol, Supreme Court Building , Washington Monument , National Gallery of Art , Lincoln Memorial, and Jefferson Memorial are all heavily drawn from these classical architectural movements and feature large pediments, domes, columns in classical order, and heavy stone walls. Notable exceptions to
10935-469: The city. Precipitation occurs throughout the year. The highest recorded temperature was 106 °F (41 °C) on August 6, 1918, and on July 20, 1930. The lowest recorded temperature was −15 °F (−26 °C) on February 11, 1899 , right before the Great Blizzard of 1899 . During a typical year, the city averages about 37 days at or above 90 °F (32 °C) and 64 nights at or below
11070-680: The city; by 1950, the district's population reached its peak of 802,178 residents. The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified in 1961, granting the district three votes in the Electoral College for the election of president and vice president, but still not affording the city's residents representation in Congress. After the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968, riots broke out in
11205-461: The creation of the capital district along the Potomac River. The city was founded in 1791, and the 6th Congress held the first session in the unfinished Capitol Building in 1800 after the capital moved from Philadelphia . In 1801, the District of Columbia, formerly part of Maryland and Virginia and including the existing settlements of Georgetown and Alexandria , was officially recognized as
11340-451: The decaying corpse of genre fiction out of the shallow grave where writers of serious literature abandoned it." For some of his own genre work, Chabon has forged an unusual horror/fantasy fiction persona under the name of August Van Zorn. More elaborately developed than a pseudonym, August Van Zorn is purported to be a pen name for one Albert Vetch (1899–1963). In Chabon's 1995 novel Wonder Boys , narrator Grady Tripp writes that he grew up in
11475-413: The detective story, "a genre that is by its nature so constrained, so untransgressive, seems unlikely to appeal to the real writer," but adds that "... Chabon makes good on his claim: a successful detective story need not be lacking in literary merit." In 2005, Chabon argued against the idea that genre fiction and entertaining fiction should not appeal to "the real writer", saying that the common perception
11610-635: The district with a total area of about 3.1 million square feet (288,000 m ). Washington Union Station is designed in a combination of architectural styles. Its Great Hall has elaborate gold leaf designs along the ceilings and the hall includes several decorative classical-style statues. Master of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts ( MFA or M.F.A. ) is a terminal degree in fine arts , including visual arts , creative writing , graphic design , photography , filmmaking , dance , theatre , other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts administration . It
11745-486: The district's African American male residents the right to vote in municipal elections. By 1870, the district's population had grown 75% in a decade to nearly 132,000 people, yet the city still lacked paved roads and basic sanitation. Some members of Congress suggested moving the capital farther west, but President Ulysses S. Grant refused to consider the proposal. In the Organic Act of 1871 , Congress repealed
11880-658: The east and north of the Potomac and the County of Alexandria to the west and south. After the Act's passage, citizens in the district were no longer considered residents of Maryland or Virginia, which ended their representation in Congress. On August 24, 1814, during the War of 1812 , British forces invaded and occupied the city after defeating an American force at Bladensburg . In retaliation for acts of destruction by American troops in
12015-426: The end of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay , and in 2007, Entertainment Weekly declared the couple "a famous—and famously in love—writing pair, like Nick and Nora Charles with word processors and not so much booze." In a 2012 interview with Guy Raz of Weekend All Things Considered , Chabon said that he writes from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. each day, Sunday through Thursday. He tries to write 1,000 words
12150-541: The establishment of a "District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States". However, the constitution does not specify a location for the capital. In the Compromise of 1790 , Madison, Alexander Hamilton , and Thomas Jefferson agreed that the federal government would pay each state's remaining Revolutionary War debts in exchange for establishing
12285-556: The federal district was a square measuring 10 miles (16 km) on each side and totaling 100 square miles (259 km ). Two pre-existing settlements were included in the territory, the port of Georgetown , founded in 1751, and the port city of Alexandria, Virginia , founded in 1749. In 1791 and 1792, a team led by Andrew Ellicott , including Ellicott's brothers Joseph and Benjamin and African American astronomer Benjamin Banneker , whose parents had been enslaved, surveyed
12420-408: The federal district; initially, the city was a separate settlement within the larger district. In 1846, Congress returned the land originally ceded by Virginia , including the city of Alexandria. In 1871, it created a single municipality for the remaining portion of the district. There have been several unsuccessful efforts to make the district into a state since the 1880s; a statehood bill passed
12555-402: The first president of the United States . The district is named after Columbia , the female personification of the nation . The U.S. Constitution in 1789 called for the creation of a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress . As such, Washington, D.C., is not part of any state , and is not one itself. The Residence Act , adopted on July 16, 1790, approved
12690-684: The first to use electrical wiring in its design. Notable contemporary residential buildings, restaurants, shops, and office buildings in the city include the Wharf on the Southwest Waterfront , Navy Yard along the Anacostia River , and CityCenterDC in Downtown . The Wharf has seen the construction of several high-rise office and residential buildings overlooking the Potomac River . Additionally, restaurants, bars, and shops have been opened at street level. Many of these buildings have
12825-404: The freezing mark (32 °F or 0 °C). On average, the first day with a minimum at or below freezing is November 18 and the last day is March 27. Washington, D.C., was a planned city , and many of the city's street grids were developed in that initial plan. In 1791, President George Washington commissioned Pierre Charles L'Enfant , a French-born military engineer and artist, to design
12960-436: The individual charters of the cities of Washington and Georgetown , abolished Washington County , and created a new territorial government for the whole District of Columbia. These steps made "the city of Washington...legally indistinguishable from the District of Columbia." In 1873, President Grant appointed Alexander Robey Shepherd as Governor of the District of Columbia. Shepherd authorized large projects that modernized
13095-430: The issues that might go into making a novel written in the genre of mainstream quote-unquote realistic fiction, that that was another genre for me now and I felt free to mix them all in a sense." The novel has been optioned by film producer Scott Rudin (who previously optioned and produced Wonder Boys ), and Cameron Crowe is adapting the novel into a screenplay, according to Chabon. In a public lecture and reading of
13230-403: The late 1990s, he has written in increasingly diverse styles for varied outlets; he is a notable defender of the merits of genre fiction and plot-driven fiction, and, along with novels, has published screenplays, children's books, comics, and newspaper serials . Chabon was born in Washington, D.C. , to a Jewish family. His parents are Robert Chabon, a physician and lawyer, and Sharon Chabon,
13365-437: The late 1990s. In 1973, Congress enacted the District of Columbia Home Rule Act providing for an elected mayor and 13-member council for the district. In 1975, Walter Washington became the district's first elected and first black mayor. Since the 1980s, the D.C. statehood movement has grown in prominence. In 2016, a referendum on D.C. statehood resulted in an 85% support among Washington, D.C., voters for it to become
13500-668: The limits imposed on us by our backgrounds, heritage and history." Five years in gestation, Telegraph Avenue had a difficult birth, Chabon telling the Guardian newspaper, "I got two years into the novel and got completely stymied and felt like it was an utter flop.... I had to start all over again, keeping the characters but reinventing the story completely and leaving behind almost every element." After starting out with literary realism with his first two novels and moving into genre-fiction experiments from The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay onward, Chabon feels that Telegraph Avenue
13635-438: The money back?' " "I used to go down to my office and fantasize about all the books I could write instead." Chabon has confessed to being "careless and sloppy" when it came to his novels' plots, saying how he "again and again falls back on the same basic story." When he finally decided to abandon Fountain City , Chabon recalls staring at his blank computer for hours before suddenly picturing "a straitlaced, troubled young man with
13770-497: The name Washington, Douglas Commonwealth (thus keeping the same abbreviation Washington, D.C.). The legalities, reasons, and impact of statehood have been heavily debated in the 2020s. Washington, D.C., is located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. East Coast . The city has a total area of 68.34 square miles (177 km ), of which 61.05 square miles (158.1 km ) is land and 7.29 square miles (18.9 km ) (10.67%)
13905-503: The nation's 51st state . In March 2017, the city's congressional delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton introduced a bill for statehood. Reintroduced in 2019 and 2021 as the Washington, D.C., Admission Act , the U.S. House of Representatives passed it in April 2021. After not progressing in the Senate, the statehood bill was introduced again in January 2023. The bill would have made D.C. into a state with one representative and two senators, with
14040-496: The new capital. He enlisted the help of Isaac Roberdeau, Étienne Sulpice Hallet and Scottish surveyor Alexander Ralston to help lay out the city plan. The L'Enfant Plan featured broad streets and avenues radiating out from rectangles, providing room for open space and landscaping. L'Enfant was also provided a roll of maps by Thomas Jefferson depicting Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Strasbourg, Paris, Orleans, Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille, Turin, and Milan. L'Enfant's design also envisioned
14175-604: The new national capital in the Southern United States . On July 9, 1790, Congress passed the Residence Act , which approved the creation of a national capital on the Potomac River . Under the Residence Act, the exact location was to be selected by President George Washington , who signed the bill into law on July 16, 1790. Formed from land donated by Maryland and Virginia, the initial shape of
14310-552: The north and south sides of the National Mall, respectively, are home to many of Washington's iconic museums, including many Smithsonian Institution buildings and the National Archives Building . Washington hosts 177 foreign embassies ; these maintain nearly 300 buildings and more than 1,600 residential properties, many of which are on a section of Massachusetts Avenue informally known as Embassy Row . The architecture of Washington, D.C., varies greatly and
14445-512: The novel in Oakland, California, Chabon listed creative influences as broad as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle , Robert Altman , and William Faulkner . Chabon's latest novel, Moonglow , was published November 22, 2016. The novel is a quasi-metafictional memoir, based upon the deathbed confessions of Chabon's grandfather in the late 1980s. Chabon followed-up Moonglow in summer 2017 with the edited collection Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront
14580-503: The novel was released on May 1, 2007, to enthusiastic reviews, and spent six weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list. The novel also won the 2008 Hugo Award . In May 2007, Chabon said that he was working on a young-adult novel with "some fantastic content." A month later, the author said he had put plans for the young-adult book on hold, and instead had signed a two-book deal with HarperCollins . The first,
14715-404: The number of blocks away from the Capitol. Most streets are set out in a grid pattern with east–west streets named with letters (e.g., C Street SW), north–south streets with numbers (e.g., 4th Street NW), and diagonal avenues, many of which are named after states . The City of Washington was bordered on the north by Boundary Street (renamed Florida Avenue in 1890); Rock Creek to the west, and
14850-481: The particular field, whereas programs leading to the MA usually center on the scholarly, academic, or critical study of the field. Additionally, in the United States, an MFA is typically recognized as a terminal degree for practitioners of visual art, design, dance, photography, theatre, film/video, new media, and creative writing—meaning that it is considered the highest degree in its field, qualifying an individual to become
14985-452: The presidency (signing a petition with over 400 other writers against his candidacy in May 2016), and during his administration. During an interview with The Guardian before Trump's inauguration in January 2017, Chabon remarked of the incoming president, "I really have no idea what to expect. He's so unpredictable. He's so mercurial. You know, I would be no more surprised if he stood up there and declared amnesty for all illegal immigrants to
15120-419: The return of Alexandria. On July 9, 1846, Congress went further, agreeing to return all territory that Virginia had ceded to the district during its formation. This left the district's area consisting only of the portion originally donated by Maryland. Confirming the fears of pro-slavery Alexandrians, the Compromise of 1850 outlawed the slave trade in the district, although not slavery itself. The outbreak of
15255-494: The same hotel as Vetch, who worked as an English professor at the (nonexistent) Coxley College and wrote hundreds of pulp stories that were "in the gothic mode, after the manner of Lovecraft ... but written in a dry, ironic, at times almost whimsical idiom." A horror-themed short story titled "In the Black Mill" was published in Playboy in June 1997 and reprinted in Chabon's 1999 story collection Werewolves in Their Youth , and
15390-407: The screen. In 1994, Chabon pitched a screenplay entitled The Gentleman Host to producer Scott Rudin , a romantic comedy "about old Jewish folks on a third-rate cruise ship out of Miami." Rudin bought the project and developed it with Chabon, but it was never filmed, partly due to the release of the similarly themed film Out to Sea in 1997. In the nineties, Chabon also pitched story ideas for both
15525-491: The song "House of Broken Gingerbread" written for the Monkees ' October 2018 album Christmas Party . He also co-wrote "Boxes" for Moses Sumney , and wrote for an unreleased Charlie Puth song. Some of Chabon's musical influences include Steely Dan and Yes . Although Chabon once described his attitude toward Hollywood as "pre-emptive cynicism", for years the author has worked to bring both adapted and original projects to
15660-465: The sort of home runs that linger in the memory for years." Tripp explains that Blackmore turned in an inadequate draft, his book contract was cancelled, and the catcher died shortly afterwards, "leaving nothing in Happy's notorious 'files' but the fragments and scribblings of a ghost." In Chabon's children's book Summerland (2002), it is suggested that Blackmore was eventually able to find a publisher for
15795-402: The story keeps us hanging on." While The Village Voice called The Final Solution "an ingenious, fully imagined work, an expert piece of literary ventriloquism , and a mash note to the beloved boys' tales of Chabon's youth," The Boston Globe wrote, "[T]he genre of the comic book is an anemic vein for novelists to mine, lest they squander their brilliance." The New York Times states that
15930-468: The tradition of the weird short story as practiced by Edgar Allan Poe and his literary descendants, among them August Van Zorn." The first recipient of the prize was Jason Roberts , whose winning story, "7C", was then included in McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories , edited by Chabon. A scene in the film adaptation of Chabon's novel The Mysteries of Pittsburgh shows two characters in
16065-559: The urge to do something more mainstream than my recent work has been." During a Q&A session in January 2009, Chabon added that he was writing a "naturalistic" novel about two families in Berkeley. In a March 2010 interview with the Guardian newspaper, Chabon added that "So far there's no overtly genre content: it's set in the present day and has no alternate reality or anything like that." Telegraph Avenue , adapted from an idea for
16200-541: The width of the adjacent street plus 20 feet (6.1 m). Despite popular belief, no law has ever limited buildings to the height of the United States Capitol or the 555-foot (169 m) Washington Monument , which remains the district's tallest structure. City leaders have cited the height restriction as a primary reason that the district has limited affordable housing and its metro area has suburban sprawl and traffic problems. Washington, D.C., still has
16335-486: The working title "Jews with Swords") was described by Chabon as "a swashbuckling adventure story set around the year 1000." Just before Gentlemen of the Road completed its run, the author published his next novel, The Yiddish Policemen's Union , which he had worked on since February 2002. A hard-boiled detective story that imagines an alternate history in which Israel collapsed in 1948 and European Jews settled in Alaska,
16470-419: Was a poetic name for the United States commonly used at that time. Congress held its first session there on November 17, 1800. Congress passed the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801 , which officially organized the district and placed the entire territory under the exclusive control of the federal government. The area within the district was organized into two counties, the County of Washington to
16605-475: Was 11, and he grew up in Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania, and Columbia , Maryland. Columbia, where he lived nine months of the year with his mother, was "a progressive planned living community in which racial, economic, and religious diversity were actively fostered." He has written of his mother's marijuana use, recalling her "sometime around 1977 or so, sitting in the front seat of her friend Kathy's car, passing
16740-414: Was a bestseller, instantly catapulting Chabon to literary celebrity. Among his major literary influences in this period were Donald Barthelme , Jorge Luis Borges , Gabriel García Márquez , Raymond Chandler , John Updike , Philip Roth and F. Scott Fitzgerald . As he remarked in 2010, "I just copied the writers whose voices I was responding to, and I think that's probably the best way to learn." Chabon
16875-607: Was a commercial and critical success. In late 2010, "An annotated, four-chapter fragment" from the unfinished 1,500 page Fountain City manuscript, "complete with cautionary introduction and postscript" written by Chabon, was included in McSweeney's 36 . Among the supporters of Wonder Boys was The Washington Post critic Jonathan Yardley ; however, despite declaring Chabon "the young star of American letters", Yardley argued that, in his works to that point, Chabon had been preoccupied "with fictional explorations of his own ... It
17010-538: Was a vocal endorser of Barack Obama during his 2008 election campaign, and wrote an enthusiastic opinion piece on Obama for the New York Review of Books , titled "Obama & the Conquest of Denver", in October 2008. Subsequently, Chabon included a brief, fictionalized 'cameo' by Obama in his 2012 novel Telegraph Avenue . Since 2016, Chabon has been an outspoken critic of Donald Trump , both during his campaign for
17145-464: Was ambivalent about his newfound fame. He turned down offers to appear in a Gap ad and to be featured as one of People ' s "50 Most Beautiful People". He later said of the People offer, "I don't give a shit [about it] ... I only take pride in things I've actually done myself. To be praised for something like that is just weird. It just felt like somebody calling and saying, 'We want to put you in
17280-405: Was attributed to Van Zorn. Chabon has created a comprehensive bibliography for Van Zorn, along with an equally fictional literary scholar devoted to his oeuvre named Leon Chaim Bach. Bach's now-defunct website (which existed under the auspices of Chabon's) declared Van Zorn to be, "without question, the greatest unknown horror writer of the twentieth century," and mentioned that Bach had once edited
17415-478: Was conceptually on steady ground." At one point, he submitted a 672-page draft to his agent and editor, who disliked the work. Chabon had problems dropping the novel, though. "It was really scary," he said later. "I'd already signed a contract and been paid all this money. And then I'd gotten a divorce and half the money was already with my ex-wife. My instincts were telling me, 'This book is fucked. Just drop it.' But I didn't, because I thought, 'What if I have to give
17550-513: Was described by a reviewer as "enough to send readers back into the cold but reliable arms of The New Yorker ." Another critic wrote of the same story that it was "richly plotted, action-packed", and that "Chabon skilfully elaborates his world and draws not just on the steampunk worlds of William Gibson , Bruce Sterling and Michael Moorcock , but on alternate histories by brilliant science fiction mavericks such as Avram Davidson and Howard Waldrop . The imperial politics are craftily resonant and
17685-583: Was forced by the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783 to move to Princeton, Congress resolved to consider a new location for it. The following day, Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts moved "that buildings for the use of Congress be erected on the banks of the Delaware near Trenton , or of the Potomac , near Georgetown , provided a suitable district can be procured on one of the rivers as aforesaid, for
17820-417: Was happy" for the magazine's error, and quoted him as saying, "I feel very lucky about all of that. It really opened up a new readership to me, and a very loyal one." In a 2002 interview, Chabon added, "If Mysteries of Pittsburgh is about anything in terms of human sexuality and identity, it's that people can't be put into categories all that easily." In "On The Mysteries of Pittsburgh ", an essay he wrote for
17955-564: Was married at the time to someone else who was also a struggling writer, and the success created a gross imbalance in our careers, which was problematic." He and Groth divorced in 1991. He married the Israeli -born writer Ayelet Waldman in 1993. They live together in Berkeley , California, with their four children. Chabon has said that the "creative free-flow" he has with Waldman inspired the relationship between Sammy Clay and Rosa Saks toward
18090-643: Was published in January 2019. This volume is a collections of introductions, afterwords, and liner notes that Chabon has contributed over the years to various books and other projects, also exploring Chabon's own literary influences and ideas about writing and reading. The book serves as a fundraiser for MacDowell , to which Chabon is contributing all royalties. In an interview with the American Booksellers Association promoting Moonglow in November 2016, Chabon stated that his next fiction project would be "...a long overdue follow-up—but not
18225-479: Was published when he was 24. He followed it with Wonder Boys (1995) and two short-story collections. In 2000, he published The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay , a novel that John Leonard would later call Chabon's magnum opus . It received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2001. His novel The Yiddish Policemen's Union , an alternate history mystery novel, was published in 2007 and won
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