Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Late in this book, Chabon declares that "Sometimes even lovers of fiction can be satisfied only by the truth." If even only a small portion of this "autobiographical novel" were true, a reader would end the book concluding that Chabon's grandfather was a remarkable man indeed. You probably wouldn't think so at the beginning, though, as the opening scene of the novel is a description of the assault--more like attempted murder--that lands Chabon's grandfather into prison. I think it is a testament to both the man and Chabon's writing skills that the reader overcomes this negative first impression to arrive at a heartfelt sympathy and admiration for him. It's hard to summarize this novel, as the plot is not linear but instead darts back and forth across time and topic (despite, it should be said, the grandfather's explicit plea to "put the whole thing in proper chronological order"). At its most basic, it is the description of the last days of Chabon's grandfather's life, wherein he suddenly begins divulging aspects of his history that Chabon had not heard before. The bulk of the memoir concerns three major narrative threads: the grandfather's wartime experiences, where he was tasked with hunting down everything and everyone associated with the German's rocketry program after Hitler's collapse and before the Russians could take custody of the material; the fraught relationship between Chabon's grandparents, especially with respect to dealing with his grandmother's mental illness; and the period shortly before Chabon's grandfather's death, when he finds himself falling in love again. However, describing the novel in these terms really does not do justice to the narrative layers and complexity of the issues Chabon grapples with. The description of Mittelbau, the concentration camp constructed by the Nazis devoted to building V-2 rockets, will haunt me for a long time, and Chabon's discussion of Werner von Braun's apparently fully cognizant role in this camp culminates in the painful conclusion that America's "ascent to the moon had been made with a ladder of bones." Perhaps the most poignant aspect of the novel was the deep---and completely unwarranted--sense of failure and despair that Chabon's grandfather seems to have carried throughout his life, as expressed in this passage: "All my life, everything I tried, I only got halfway there. You try to take advantage of the time you have... But when you're old, you look back and you see all you did with that time is waste it. All you have is a story of things you never started or couldn't finish." It saddens me to think that he never recognized the strength of his character and all the remarkable things he accomplished, not least of which was loyalty to his wife under circumstances where many would be tempted to give up and walk away. I think "Moonglow" is one of the best novels I have read in years, and I hope this review does not deter anybody from reading it. My description is admittedly rather bleak, but while the book does delve into serious topics and describes heartbreaking events, it would be a mistake to think that it is relentlessly depressing. Much humor abounds, especially involving the character of Uncle Ray, a man for whom the adjective "rascally" was seemingly invented, who takes custody of Chabon's mother when the grandparents were institutionalized. And even though the subject matter is often disturbing or depressing, the beauty of Chabon's prose makes reading the book immensely worthwhile. I found myself dog-earing numerous passages that resonated deeply with me, such as this one where Chabon notes that during the war, his grandfather "was accustomed by now to feeling grateful that when death settled like a flock of birds around him, it was other men and not him on whom it perched. This gratitude never had anything to do with happiness." Other reviewers have opined that this novel, while excellent, does not quite live up to some of Chabon's earlier Pulitzer prize-winning novels. I cannot attest to the validity of that opinion, because I must confess that this is the first book by Chabon (but by no means will be the last!) that I have ever read. What I *will* say is that if Chabon has written books that are even better than "Moonglow," he must surely be one of greatest writers of our time.