Maps and Legends

Last updated

Maps and Legends
Mapsleggy2.jpg
First edition cover
Author Michael Chabon
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Genre Essay collection
Publisher McSweeney's
Publication date
May 1, 2008
Media typePrint (Hardcover)
Pages222 pp
ISBN 1-932416-89-7
OCLC 176924865

Maps and Legends is a collection of sixteen essays by American author Michael Chabon, his first book-length foray into nonfiction. [1] Several of these essays are defenses of the author's work in genre literature (such as science fiction, fantasy, and comics), while others are more autobiographical, explaining how the author came to write several of his most popular works.

Contents

Reception

Prior to its release, the book received harsh criticism from Publishers Weekly , which declared Chabon to be "bitter and defensive about his love for genre fiction such as mysteries and comic books", adding, "It's hard to imagine the audience for this book." [2] Many subsequent newspaper and magazine reviewers have been positive. In The New York Times , Mark Kamine wrote that "[E]ntertainment, as Chabon argues in this collection’s opening essay, is what literary art all boils down to. As in all his books, there’s plenty of it to be had in Maps and Legends." [3] San Francisco Gate called the collection "fascinating", [4] O: The Oprah Magazine said that "Vital energy and a boundless appetite for risk give these essays their electric charge", and Harper's Magazine noted that "What is so startling is how much more interesting most of these indulgences are to read about in Chabon's pages than they were on their own, in the pulpy original; as if the nostalgic novelist, like the magician-for-hire in his Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay , can make paper roses consumed by fire bloom from a pile of ash." [5]

Contents

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Chabon</span> American author and Pulitzer Prize winner

Michael Chabon is an American novelist, screenwriter, columnist, and short story writer. Born in Washington, D.C., he spent a year studying at Carnegie Mellon University before transferring to the University of Pittsburgh, graduating in 1984. He subsequently received a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of California, Irvine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christopher Morley</span> American journalist, novelist, essayist and poet

Christopher Darlington Morley was an American journalist, novelist, essayist and poet. He also produced stage productions for a few years and gave college lectures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dave Eggers</span> American writer, editor, and publisher

Dave Eggers is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He wrote the 2000 best-selling memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Eggers is also the founder of Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, a literary journal; a co-founder of the literacy project 826 Valencia and the human rights nonprofit Voice of Witness; and the founder of ScholarMatch, a program that matches donors with students needing funds for college tuition. His writing has appeared in several magazines, including The New Yorker, Esquire, and The New York Times Magazine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonathan Lethem</span> American novelist, essayist, short story writer

Jonathan Allen Lethem is an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. His first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music, a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was published in 1994. In 1999, Lethem published Motherless Brooklyn, a National Book Critics Circle Award-winning novel that achieved mainstream success. In 2003, he published The Fortress of Solitude, which became a New York Times Best Seller. In 2005, he received a MacArthur Fellowship. Since 2011, he has taught creative writing at Pomona College.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reed Crandall</span> American cartoonist

Reed Leonard Crandall was an American illustrator and penciller of comic books and magazines. He was best known for the 1940s Quality Comics' Blackhawk and for stories in EC Comics during the 1950s. Crandall was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2009.

<i>The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay</i> 2000 novel by Michael Chabon

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is a 2000 novel by American author Michael Chabon that won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2001. The novel follows the lives of two Jewish cousins, Czech artist Joe Kavalier and Brooklyn-born writer Sammy Clay, before, during, and after World War II. In the novel, Kavalier and Clay become major figures in the comics industry from its nascency into its Golden Age. Kavalier & Clay was published to "nearly unanimous praise" and became a New York Times Best Seller, receiving nominations for the 2000 National Book Critics Circle Award and PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. In 2006, Bret Easton Ellis declared the novel "one of the three great books of my generation," and in 2007, The New York Review of Books called the novel Chabon's magnum opus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">McSweeney's</span> American publishing house

McSweeney's Publishing is an American non-profit publishing house founded by Dave Eggers in 1998 and headquartered in San Francisco.

<i>The Believer</i> (magazine) American magazine

The Believer is an American bimonthly magazine of interviews, essays, and reviews, founded by the writers Heidi Julavits, Vendela Vida, and Ed Park in 2003. The magazine is a five-time finalist for the National Magazine Award.

Christopher John Offutt is an American writer. He is most widely known for his short stories and novels, but he has also published three memoirs and multiple nonfiction articles. In 2005, he had a story included in a comic book collection edited by Michael Chabon, and another in the anthology Noir. He has written episodes for the TV series True Blood and Weeds.

<i>Timothy McSweeneys Quarterly Concern</i> American literary journal

Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern is an American literary journal, founded in 1998, typically containing short stories, reportage, and illustrations. Some issues also include poetry, comic strips, and novellas. The Quarterly Concern is published by McSweeney's based in San Francisco and it has been edited by Dave Eggers. The journal is notable in that it has no fixed format, and changes its publishing style from issue to issue, unlike more conventional journals and magazines.

Peter H. Cannon is an H. P. Lovecraft scholar and an author of Cthulhu Mythos fiction. Cannon works as an editor for Publishers Weekly, specializing in thrillers and mystery. He lives in New York City and is married with three children.

Ben Ehrenreich is an American freelance journalist and novelist who lives in Los Angeles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ben Katchor</span> American cartoonist and illustrator (born 1951)

Ben Katchor is an American cartoonist and illustrator best known for the comic strip Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer. He has contributed comics and drawings to The Forward, The New Yorker,Metropolis, and weekly newspapers in the United States. A Guggenheim Fellowship and MacArthur Fellowship recipient, Katchor was described by author Michael Chabon as "the creator of the last great American comic strip."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Sturm</span> American cartoonist

James Sturm is an American cartoonist and co-founder of the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vermont. Sturm is also the founder of the National Association of Comics Art Educators (NACAE), an organization committed to helping facilitate the teaching of comics in higher education.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Serial (literature)</span> Publishing format by which a single literary work is presented in contiguous instalments

In literature, a serial is a printing or publishing format by which a single larger work, often a work of narrative fiction, is published in smaller, sequential instalments. The instalments are also known as numbers, parts, fascicules or fascicles, and may be released either as separate publications or within sequential issues of a periodical publication, such as a magazine or newspaper.

Manhood For Amateurs is a 2009 collection of essays by the American writer Michael Chabon.

<i>Building Stories</i> 2012 graphic novel by American cartoonist Chris Ware

Building Stories is a 2012 graphic novel by American cartoonist Chris Ware. The unconventional work is made up of fourteen printed works—cloth-bound books, newspapers, broadsheets and flip books—packaged in a boxed set. The work took a decade to complete, and was published by Pantheon Books. The intricate, multilayered stories pivot around an unnamed female protagonist with a missing lower leg. It mainly focuses on her time in a three-story brownstone apartment building in Chicago, but also follows her later in her life as a mother. The parts of the work can be read in any order.

This is a list of works by American author Michael Chabon.

<i>Can & Cantankerous</i> 2015 collection of short stories by Harlan Ellison

Can & Can'tankerous is a 2015 collection of previously uncollected short stories written by Harlan Ellison. The collection includes the story "How Interesting: A Tiny Man", which won the 2011 Nebula Award for Best Short Story alongside "Ponies" by Kij Johnson. The collection was edited by Jason Davis and includes an introduction to the story "Loose Cannon" written by Neil Gaiman.

Ralph Dennis was an American author of crime fiction, best known for his Hardman series of detective novels. The writer and anthologist Ed Gorman described him as "the most beloved obscure private eye writer who ever lived".

References

  1. "Future McSweeney's Books" Archived 2007-10-12 at the Wayback Machine , McSweeney's Internet Tendency. Retrieved on 2007-10-10.
  2. "Review by Publishers Weekly Review". Publishers Weekly . n.d. Archived from the original (Reproduced at DC Public Library website) on July 9, 2012. Retrieved October 10, 2010.
  3. Kamine, Mark (June 29, 2008). "Chasing His Bliss". The New York Times. Retrieved May 12, 2010.
  4. Zigmond, Dan (May 4, 2008). "'Maps and Legends': Chabon considers his craft". The San Francisco Chronicle.
  5. "The McSweeney's Store". Archived from the original on October 5, 2008. Retrieved October 18, 2008.