Michael Chabon: "Pops"

This is a tiny collection of essays about being a father. Chabon is smart, lively, and subversive, and he finds small moments of absurdity all over the place:

*A grave Richard Ford corners a young Chabon at a party and says, "Whatever you do, don't have kids. They will ruin your writing career." (Chabon thinks, Maybe Richard Ford has a point. Or maybe not.)

*An essay on euphemism. What word do you use when you're reading "Huck Finn," and someone says the N-word for the ten-thousandth time? Chabon congratulates himself on his own sensitivity, until one of his kids points out he had no problem saying "Injun Joe," over and over again, while reading "Tom Sawyer."

*An essay on what to do when your son becomes a dick. Chabon candidly acknowledges dickishness in his own past, then describes puncturing his son's ego in a breathtaking way. It's strange to see a parent writing with such a frosty, unapologetic tone about a struggle with a teenager.

All along, Chabon resists conventional piety and keeps a nice contrarian hum just under the surface. Many parents would throw up their hands when a son dramatically changes his wardrobe every single day; movingly, Chabon sees a real struggle in this wardrobe issue, and he steps back and lets his son make many, many sartorial mistakes. And he grants his son dignity by refusing to say, These wardrobe questions don't actually matter. Because--to a teenager--the questions do matter.

I'd like to meet Michael Chabon, but if I can't do that, I'm happy to have this book. It's a kind of indirect challenge to the reader, a chance to look more closely at daily life. It's worth reading, then re-reading.

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