468 pages
English language
Published Oct. 4, 2012 by Fourth Estate.
The new novel from Michael Chabon, his first in 5 years, is a lovingly painted pop-culture epic. One street, two families. As the summer of 2004 draws to a close, Archy Stallings and Nat Jaffe are still hanging in there, longtime friends, band mates and co-regents of Brokeland Records. Their wives, Gwen Shanks and Aviva Roth-Jaffe, are the Berkeley Birth Partners, a pair of semi-legendary nurse midwives. When ex-NFL quarterback Gibson Goode announces plans to go forward with the construction of his latest Dogpile megastore on Telegraph Avenue, Nat and Archy fear the worst for their vulnerable little enterprise. But behind Goode's announcement a nefarious story lurks. As their husbands struggle to mount a defence, Aviva and Gwen also find themselves caught up in a professional struggle that tests the limits of their friendship. And simultaneously, into their already tangled lives, comes Titus Joyner, the teenaged son Archy has never …
The new novel from Michael Chabon, his first in 5 years, is a lovingly painted pop-culture epic. One street, two families. As the summer of 2004 draws to a close, Archy Stallings and Nat Jaffe are still hanging in there, longtime friends, band mates and co-regents of Brokeland Records. Their wives, Gwen Shanks and Aviva Roth-Jaffe, are the Berkeley Birth Partners, a pair of semi-legendary nurse midwives. When ex-NFL quarterback Gibson Goode announces plans to go forward with the construction of his latest Dogpile megastore on Telegraph Avenue, Nat and Archy fear the worst for their vulnerable little enterprise. But behind Goode's announcement a nefarious story lurks. As their husbands struggle to mount a defence, Aviva and Gwen also find themselves caught up in a professional struggle that tests the limits of their friendship. And simultaneously, into their already tangled lives, comes Titus Joyner, the teenaged son Archy has never acknowledged. An intimate epic set to the funky beat of classic vinyl soul-jazz and pulsing with a virtuosic, pyrotechnical style all of its own, Telegraph Avenue is Michael Chabon's most dazzling book yet.
Wow. I really loved this one. Old records, kung fu, blaxploitation, confused middle aged guys. I feel like it really speaks to me.
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Its pace belied its length, and his talent for narration won me over even though I didn't particularly care for any of his characters or the setting, which never became more than the TV-show premise that they started as.
A gorgeous slice of Americana, superbly written and executed. Music runs like a thread all through the book, from New Orleans jazz to Miles and Coltrane, all the way to Sly Stone, with a sprinkling of Carol King.
Flojo. Todo lo que me encantó en 'Las asombrosas aventuras de Kavalier y Clay' aquí parece falso y sin gracia. Otro día, Michael.
Not quite as brilliant as some of his other stuff, but still pretty great.
I received an advance readerâs copy of this novel from Goodreads back in the fall. Unfortunately, Iâm a bit of a slow reader, and I like to read more than one book at a time. That is why I just finished the book now. This is the first time Iâve read a novel by Michael Chabon, so Iâm not able to compare the style and content of Telegraph Avenue to his other work.
Overall, I found Telegraph Avenue to be an alternately frustrating and unsatisfying read. I would often be confronted with instances where I thought Chabon was caught up in his own brilliant, flourishing prose while not advancing the story at all. And the style of the prose often wouldnât match up with characters. For example, characters like Luther Stallings and Valletta Moore would be given voices in a scene that carried a casual vernacular that âsoundedâ natural. But …
I received an advance readerâs copy of this novel from Goodreads back in the fall. Unfortunately, Iâm a bit of a slow reader, and I like to read more than one book at a time. That is why I just finished the book now. This is the first time Iâve read a novel by Michael Chabon, so Iâm not able to compare the style and content of Telegraph Avenue to his other work.
Overall, I found Telegraph Avenue to be an alternately frustrating and unsatisfying read. I would often be confronted with instances where I thought Chabon was caught up in his own brilliant, flourishing prose while not advancing the story at all. And the style of the prose often wouldnât match up with characters. For example, characters like Luther Stallings and Valletta Moore would be given voices in a scene that carried a casual vernacular that âsoundedâ natural. But then the third-person narration around that scene would be embellished in a way that distanced the reader from the story. Iâm not sure how to put it. But itâs like Chabon wrote realistic characters that he couldnât relate to. Itâs like Chabon got advice on how to make Archy Stallings sound real, but he himself doesnât actually know anyone like Archy in a way that would allow more empathy in his writing. The exception to that rule would be scenes involving the Jaffe family. In those family scenes, the narration gives off a sense of familiarity.
The characters were another weakness for me. Many characters are introduced, which wouldnât be so bad if more of them were fully developed. Why are Archy and Nat such good friends, when the only thing they appear to have in common is music? Why are Archy and Gwen married, when they donât even seem to like each other for just about all of the book? Why would Gwen stay with Archy when he cheats on her all of the time? What is the point of Titusâ existence outside of convenient plot devices? For some reason, Titus is the only character whose inner thoughts arenât presented. As I read about more charactersâ stories, I was often wondering why their stories had to be told.
I read an article a while ago that said Chabonâs original idea behind Telegraph Avenue was a television show, which would explain a lot. The novel offers more of a setting than an actual plot. It's not a bad book. But I don't think my time was well-spent in reading it.
Really, really enjoyable. Using Obama as a character is a little gimmicky, though. Uncalled-for. Also, Chapter III is very trying, consisting mainly of one long sentence. That chapter alone cost the book a star in my rating.
This is another beautifully written novel by Michael Chabon, who has a mysterious ability to conjure up irresistible characters, seeing out of their eyes, and becoming a master of any subject. In this case, the subjects are the history and culture of a certain area of Oakland, which form the backdrop and memories of the main characters. As anyone would expect from a Chabon novel, there is more than one storyline, all depicting people trying to find their own meaning and way of life, while attending to their individual road blocks. I found it riveting.
Now, I must look up some of this music--and perhaps a Kung Fu movie.
A beautifully written book--some of the best prose I've read in 2012--but there's so much crammed into the book that it doesn't work as well as it should. It's got a great character--Archy Stallings--who's struggling with relationship issues, family issues, neighborhood issues, and issues of loyalty to his friends and community, and whenever the book concentrates on Archy, it's really, really good. But there are whole mess of other characters that muddle things up.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book; perhaps the first of Chabon's that I've enjoyed unreservedly. I think it helps that I am already often preoccupied with obscure music and films. the references to Tarantino were obvious before they became explicit.
But don't worry there's very little gore here and that is in a childbirth related storyline. And unlike Tarantino films the substance wins out over the style: friendship beyond dividing lines of race, gender or blood.
Wavering between 3 and 4. A lot of threads, here, some handled better than others. I can't think of what to say about it, really; don't want to summarize and don't want to awkwardly criticize his awkward representation of multiracial Oakland. It's a pretty good story that moves well. When it gets sidetracked it does so in interesting ways.
