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Title: Writing Workshop Writing About Writing Workshops
Review: I've tried to be impressed with this book, but cannot. That Michael Chabon is a master of the language is not in doubt. What is in doubt is whether, ultimately, his story and, more importantly, his characters, are relevant. If you want to spend a weekend reading a novel about pot heads in Pittsburgh, with a touch of homosexual love interest (isn't that sweet?), then this myopic exposition is for you. The main protagonist is too pathetic, the plot too lacking in higher action, the point of view too seedy (in an unexciting sense of the word). Reading it is to feel squeezed into a drab colored, excessively confining frame. Stories about writing workshops by products of writing workshops always seem to beg the question. Mr. Chabon, take a lesson from Thom Jones -- move out into the world. Away from the classrooms and away from the excessive self absorption of the ego hominem.
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