![]() ![]() But while it provides Chabon ample opportunities to riff entertainingly in lovely, evocative prose (as when he describes an act of uncharacteristic heroism as "a high point in a life lived at sea level, prone to flooding"), jazz music proves a fitful and underpowered narrative engine. The novel's central metaphor is jazz, soul and funk music: how it saturates the lives of those who make it, how it shapes the sensibilities of those who obsessively consume and collect it, and how it nurtures fervent, fractious communities like the one that exists in and around Brokeland, a dusty record store threatened by the imminent arrival of a vast urban mall. ![]() ![]() There is much here to recommend, but then, there is much here, period, including but not limited to: blackmail, infidelity, first love, kung fu, midwifery, a Barack Obama cameo and an enormously phallic black zeppelin, all presented in a manner as loose and tension-free as a stoner's wee-hours disquisition on why his favorite album totally rules, man.īut of course that's a deliberate choice on Chabon's part. Michael Chabon's Telegraph Avenue is an agreeable if ultimately frustrating shaggy-dog tale of a novel that slips its leash and lopes its discursive and distinctly unhurried way through the unkempt backyards of its characters' lives. ![]() Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title Telegraph Avenue Author Michael Chabon ![]()
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