Telegraph Avenue

Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I am a huge fan of the brilliant Michael Chabon, but I almost put this book down a dozen times. I stayed with it because I loved the characters, two nerdy, struggling guys who run a used record store in a run-down neighborhood, and their wives, fathers, and sons. Every character took up a place in my heart, and so I followed them through the swamp of details about jazz artists and producers in the days of vinyl. Unless you share Chabon's passion for the subject--I do not--you'll be wishing an editor had cut the book to its real story, which is about friendship, fatherhood, changing cultural values, and the clash of big-box commerce with local culture and business--all worthy themes explored with Chabon's usual originality, humor, and sensitivity. And the man can still write more consecutive beautiful sentences than anyone else I've ever read.

I'm going to go back to The Yiddish Policeman's Union, which I have somehow never read, to renew my faith in my favorite writer.