'In a totally sane society, madness is the only freedom'

Summerland

Summerland

Michael Chabon

Ethan is a young hero on a quest though the strange world of American Faery. Since baseball is the favourite game of American fairies, or ‘ferishers’ as the North American Fairy Folk call themselves, this is necessarily a story of baseball, too. Zeppelins, werefoxes, Indians and Indian mythology, sasquatches, wendigos, Alaska, the haunted 161-year-old husk of George Armstrong Custer, and a boy who thinks he’s an android, also figure in the action. Along the way, the hero and heroine find themselves and each other; a band of ferishers triumphs over their ancient enemy and finally find someone new to play baseball against; a widower’s heart will heal as his airship conquers the northern sky; and a burned-out Colombian slugger named Rodrigo Buendia will find redemption in discovering, with Ethan Feld and Jennifer T. Rideout, the true nature of heroism.

Reviews of Summerland

    • ‘An epic fantasy for modern America.’ Sunday Times
    • ‘Chabon’s quirky, fluent style holds no hint of condescension and is sprinkled with wry remarks that will delight the young teenager.’ Daily Telegraph
    • ‘Perhaps the surest sign of “Summerland’s success is how the language of Chabon’s fictional universe stays with you and the way he achieves a sweet genuinely affecting ending.’ Time Out
    • 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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