Springcleaning the Book Piles – Book 24 “Moonglow” by Michael Chabon

Sometimes I can get a bit stuck on books. I find them easier to put down than pick up. It’s not because they are inherently bad books but because at that time they are not books that engage me. Moonglow by Michael Chabon was one of those and in my challenge it is the book that I have come closest to abandoning. It’s a work of literary fiction which I think that I got via my secondhand book subscription at some unidentified time in the past. It’s been lingering on my to-be-read pile for a while now because the only book which I had previously read from this author was disappointing (see my review here).

Moonglow is a biography of the author’s grandfather, mainly told from memories recounted in the last year of his life. A note at the end of the book assures the reader that none of the story is true but it is written as though it is factual. The grandfather grew up as a Jew in Philadelphia with a mischievous and disruptive attitude, served in WW2, built models for a living, spent time in prison, fell in love, took up snakehunting, had an obsession with space and particularly the moon, found new love late in life, and brought up his wife’s daughter as his own child. He’s a man who lived life to the full and his story as told as a series of events and episodes, not usually in chronological order, some of which are rather far-fetched. I had no problem following the narrative structure.

The grandfather (he is not named in the book) is a man of deep convictions and a well-developed sense of what is right. He loves with a passion, enjoys solving  problems, has a pragmatic view of how to relate to authority and hates injustice. His life story is full of incident, much of it caused by his own actions. The book shows us what it was like to grow up Jewish, to go to war, to be in prison and to love. There are lots of engaging characters – his gambling brother, his mentally troubled wife, a security guard who helps him look for a snake, his wartime colleagues and his stubborn daughter. Many characters only appear for a paragraph or two but are still well portrayed such as a doctor, his employer, a nursing sister, a prison bully and Werner Von Braun the physicist.

I can see that this book is well written and I particularly admired the way that he dealt with the wife’s longterm trauma but there were a couple of reasons that it didn’t engage me. One was that I didn’t get the feeling that there was an overall message from this life or a conclusion that we were supposed to reach from the story. Secondly, I am not American or Jewish and the cultural references often passed over my head whilst they would be instantly recognisable to other readers. I also felt, as is the case in all biography, that I never really understood the grandfather’s inner motivations but as this is a novel I would have liked to have that opportunity. All of these were my problems rather than general issues about this book and I note that it is highly regarded by other readers.

I shall pass this book along to Oxfam to find a new home. I note that I have another book by this writer on my to-be-read pile which I shall approach with some caution – not all writers resonate with all readers, after all.