‘Art is despair with dignity’

A Model World

A Model World

Michael Chabon

Wry and whimsical, but also with intellectual depth, A MODEL WORLD is a collection of eleven wonderful stories about growing up and growing wise.

In ‘S Angel’ a group of wedding guests is hijacked by a fast-talking real estate agent, but not before the bride herself disappears. ‘Smoke’ takes us to a baseball catcher’s funeral, where one of the mourners – a has-been pitcher – confronts the ruins of his career. In the hilarious title story, a graduate student plagiarizes a dissertation on the movement of clouds, only to find himself and his faculty advisor in a parlour game where each player must confess the worst thing he or she has ever done. The second part of the book, ‘The Lost World’, is a series of stories about a young boy, Nathan Shapiro, who must face the wrenching emotions caused by his parents’ bitter divorce.

Serious, yet shot through with wit, humour and compassion, these are unforgettable stories from one of America’s most celebrated writers.

Reviews of A Model World

    • ‘Poignant, affecting, witty, wrenching, a terrific writer.’ Washington Post
    • ‘Establishes Chabon as one of his generation’s most eloquent voices.’ New York Times
    • Praise for ‘The Yiddish Policemen’s Union’:
    • ‘His almost ecstatically smart and sassy new novel…Chabon is a spectacular writer…a language magician. He has you laughing out loud, applauding the fun he has with language and the way he takes the task of a writer and runs delighted rings around it.’ Guardian
    • ‘Michael Chabon’s brilliant new novel starts with a bang…It hums with humour. It buzzes with gags…the accumulated reading experience is one of admiration, close to awe, at the vigour of Chabon’s imagination…a hilarious, antic whirl of a novel.’ Sunday Times
    • ‘It makes film noir look like film blanc by comparison.’ Arena

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