"Moonglow" by Michael Chabon

Michael Chabon's Moonglow is a really enjoyable book. Despite some of the more depressing elements of the plot, it has a light touch and often is very amusing. Although Chabon pretends that his narrator's story of his grandfather is a memoir, it's clearly fiction. I enjoyed the way the novel jumps around in time and space, playing on the various themes and memories that are being developed. As the reviewer in the Guardian wrote:

"This is a novel that, despite its chronological lurches, feels entirely sure footed, propulsive, the work of a master at his very best. The brilliance of Moonglow stands as a strident defence of the form itself, a bravura demonstration of the endless mutability and versatility of the novel." (Review by Alex Preston, Jan. 10, 2017)

The grandfather had always been a reticent character, but during his final illness, he offers a number of stories to his attentive novelist grandson -- suggesting that this be written down. I guess this makes this a little bit of a meta-novel, emphasizing the irony of its being a pretend memoir. Although there are very serious themes throughout the book, I liked the context of lightness in which they are developed.

I'm so grateful to my friend Margo who
loaned me Moonglow!

Combining his own memories of both his grandparents with his grandfather's final confessions, the narrator is able to detail his grandfather's life. The stories include the grandfather's early days in Baltimore and Philadelphia, his experience with the American troops at the end of World War II, and his relationships with his parents and his brother. A highlight was the meeting of his grandfather and grandmother, but also the grandfather's unfortunate prison stay in the mid-1950s, the consequences of the grandfather's obsession with space travel, and quite a bit more. All captivating, I would say.

Both the narrator's grandfather and his grandmother were fascinating people, and the portrait of the grandmother -- who suffered from crippling mental illness -- was incredibly rich and intriguing. Along with her very small daughter (who became the narrator's mother), she came to Baltimore as a refugee from France, her native land, just after the war. Needless to say, she had suffered a number of traumas that come out in the narrative. Mother and child were sponsored by a synagogue that wanted to help the victims -- the grandfather wanted no part of synagogue social life, but was persuaded to attend the Purim party where they met. The love story of this couple is at times tragic, but not always. The whole story is full of irony and improbability, which makes it very good to read.

As always, I like to see how authors use food to help tell a story, and Chabon provides a variety of examples of this throughout the story, especially the mentions of his French grandmother's very skillful French cooking (like the time she made him a tarte Tatin and he ate it all). Or the fact that the narrator has lost the omelet pan that he had inherited from his grandmother, though he still makes some of her recipes.

At the end of his grandfather's life, after the death of his wife, he moves permanently to Florida. The tragic elements of his story seem less tragic and the comic parts seem more comic: at least until his final illness sets in. He meets a widow named Sally, and their relationship, it's a relief to say, is pretty amusing. For example, he invites her to dinner at "an overpriced crab house in Boynton Beach, a rope-trimmed tourist trap that my grandmother had despised." He suffers gastric distress which seems "as though her ghost had poisoned his chowder," though eventually he decides it's his nervous lack of confidence in his date with Sally. I especially found this amusing because I've visited relatives who have retired to Boynton Beach.