Fans of Michael Chabon's Pulitzer- Prize winning The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay should take the time to explore Chabon's earlier work which demonstrates the same knack for illustrating complicated and messy human emotion with grace and ease. Wonder Boys is just such a piece - taking place over the course of one tumultuous weekend at a small college we experience the world through the eyes Grady Tripp, an English professor with a few successful novels to his name. Prof. Tripp's success has slowed to a rolling stop - painfully working on the same novel (Wonder Boys) for the past 7 years and at over 2500 pages there is seemingly no end in sight. It takes a weekend with one of his young students - a curious boy named James Leer with a frightening ability to recollect the dates and death dates of even the most obscure Hollywood actors and actresses who have taken their own lives - to begin to bring Grady to realizations about his own life, infidelities and artistic work.As a fan of the craft of writing and the lives of authors, I couldn't put down Wonder Boys. Its pace is perfect and its characters well-balanced on that line between wild and yet still oddly believable. Take the time to enjoy Wonder Boys this summer if you've ever been fascinated by the men and women behind the memorable characters of your favorite novels. You will be transported to a world of publishers, intrigue, personal drama, and as Chabon aptly names it - "the midnight disease" - an illness marked by booze, melancholy and a penchant for success. I closed the book inspired to sit down and try and craft my own great American novel with Prof. Tripp's advice in mind.
Meg Evans
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