Author | Michael Chabon |
---|---|
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Genre | Literary fiction |
Publisher | HarperCollins |
Publication date | September 11, 2012 |
Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
Pages | 465 |
ISBN | 978-0061493348 |
Telegraph Avenue is a novel by Michael Chabon, published on September 11, 2012. An extensive excerpt from the enhanced e-book edition was released online on July 25, 2012. [1] The novel's setting is North Oakland and Berkeley, California. The title refers to Telegraph Avenue, which runs through both cities.
Set in 2004, Archy Stallings, who is black, and Nat Jaffe, who is Jewish, are proprietors of Brokeland Records, a record shop located in north Oakland for twelve years. Their used vinyl business is threatened by ex-NFL superstar Gibson Goode's planned construction of his second Dogpile Thang megastore two blocks away. They feel betrayed because their local city councilman, Chandler Flowers, has switched sides, and now supports Dogpile.
A subplot concerns their wives, Gwen Shanks and Aviva Roth-Jaffe, who are partners in Berkeley Birth Partners, a midwifery business. A home birth goes wrong, the mother is rushed to the hospital, and the attending physician, after taking care of the mother, insults Gwen in a racially tinged manner. She blows up, and the doctor has the hospital start procedures to drop Gwen and Aviva's hospital privileges.
Another storyline concerns Luther Stallings, Archy's father, an actor in blaxploitation films in the 70s. He was never a part of Archy's life, and Archy wants nothing to do with him. Luther has been in and out of jail and on and off drugs since his acting career ended, has been clean for over a year, and he keeps himself trim. He is involved with his former co-star Valetta Moore.
Luther had been best friends with Chandler in the old days. Their friendship came to an end, after Luther abetted Chandler in the murder of a drug dealer. Luther is trying to exploit his knowledge in order to finance the making of a film.
Another storyline concerns Julius Jaffe, Nat and Aviva's 14-year-old son, and his new best buddy, Titus Joyner, who has shown up from Texas after his grandmother died. Titus, it turns out, is Archy's long lost son. His arrival is the last straw in Gwen's relationship with Archy.
Setting up a gig for a fundraiser for an Illinois politician, Barack Obama, running for U.S. Senate, Archy learns of the death of Cochise Jones, Archy's spiritual father, and Archy fills in. Obama is impressed with the performance, and tells Gwen he admires Archy's dedication to doing what he loves. Gwen takes those words to heart, and resolves to stand up for herself. The first stand she takes is to walk out on Archy.
The funeral for Jones is held in the store. Plans are made, people get drunk, and the stage is set for shaking up everyone's future.
As part of the book's marketing, HarperCollins created a real-world Brokeland Records as a pop-up store. To coincide with the book launch, an independent Oakland bookstore was, for one week, September 7–14, 2012, made over into a used jazz record store, using stock from an independent dealer. In addition to the new signage and stock, "Brokeland Records" bags and other paraphernalia were provided. [2] [3] [4]
The novel references numerous albums from the era, including works by Miles Davis, Yes, and Andy Gibb. [5]
In the end, Chabon's novel suggests, what has the power to fill the void inside us isn't artifacts, but paternity.
In "Telegraph Avenue," Michael Chabon's characters join with the giddy excess and unlikely rigor of his prose to mount a sort of meta-argument that we might bridge racial distance using the skills found in our bigger-hearted novelists ....
But despite Chabon's dazzling brilliance as a stylist, huge sections of "Telegraph Avenue" read like they've been written by a man being paid by the word who has a balloon mortgage due.
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.
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.
Telegraph Avenue is a street that begins, at its southernmost point, in the midst of the historic downtown district of Oakland, California, and ends, at its northernmost point, at the southern edge of the University of California, Berkeley campus in Berkeley, California. It is approximately 4.5 miles (7 km) in length.
Donald Kirshner was an American music publisher, music consultant, rock music producer, talent manager, and songwriter. Dubbed "the Man with the Golden Ear" by Time magazine, he was best known for managing songwriting talent as well as successful pop groups, such as the Monkees, Kansas, and the Archies.
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh is a 1988 novel by American author Michael Chabon. It is a coming-of-age tale set during the early 1980s in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The Piedmont Avenue neighborhood is a residential and commercial district in the North Oakland region of Oakland, California. It is named for Piedmont Avenue, a commercial street known for dining and retail. The neighborhood is roughly bounded by Temescal and Broadway on the west, Oakland Avenue and the City of Piedmont on the east, the Mountain View Cemetery on the north, and the MacArthur Freeway section of Interstate 580 on the south.
Temescal is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Oakland, California, located in North Oakland, and centered on Telegraph Avenue. The neighborhood derives its name from Temescal Creek, a significant watercourse in the city.
The Other Change of Hobbit is a science fiction and fantasy bookstore, formerly located in Berkeley, California and then El Cerrito; it no longer has a physical location. It was founded in 1977, the same weekend that Star Wars opened. It has been the site of numerous author appearances. The founding partners were science fiction fans Dave Nee, Debbie Notkin, and Tom Whitmore. The store is named after the Hobbits from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
Prairie Lights is an independent bookstore in downtown Iowa City, Iowa, founded in 1978, by Jim Harris.
The Yiddish Policemen's Union is a 2007 novel by American author Michael Chabon. The novel is a detective story set in an alternative history version of the present day, based on the premise that during World War II, a temporary settlement for Jewish refugees was established in Sitka, Alaska, in 1941, and that the fledgling State of Israel was destroyed in 1948. The novel is set in Sitka, which it depicts as a large, Yiddish-speaking metropolis.
The Oakland Public Library is the public library in Oakland, California. Opened in 1878, the Oakland Public Library currently serves the city of Oakland, along with neighboring smaller cities Emeryville and Piedmont. The Oakland Public Library has the largest collection of any public library in the East Bay, featuring approximately 1.5 million items. It consists of a main library located in downtown Oakland, and 16 branch libraries throughout the city.
A Model World and Other Stories is a 1991 collection of short stories by Michael Chabon. It was his first story collection and second book, following the 1988 novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh.
Cody's Books (1956–2008) was an independent bookstore based in Berkeley, California. It "was a pioneer in bookselling, bringing the paperback revolution to Berkeley, fighting censorship, and providing a safe harbor from tear gas directed at anti-Vietnam War protesters throughout the 1960s and 1970s."
Titus Andronicus is an American indie rock band formed in Glen Rock, New Jersey, in 2005. The band is composed of singer-lyricist-guitarist Patrick Stickles, guitarist Liam Betson, bassist R.J. Gordon, and drummer Chris Wilson. The group takes its name from the Shakespeare play Titus Andronicus, and has cited musical and stylistic influences such as Neutral Milk Hotel and Pulp.
Rory D. Root was the owner of Comic Relief, a comic book retailer in Berkeley, California.
Bellefield Boiler Plant, also known as "The Cloud Factory" from its nickname's use in Michael Chabon's 1988 debut novel The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, is a boiler plant located in Junction Hollow between the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University in the Oakland district of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Only One Life: The Songs of Jimmy Webb is a studio album by American singer Michael Feinstein, released in October 2003 by Concord Records. The album was recorded in tribute to the songwriter Jimmy Webb.
John Egan is an Irish professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for EFL Championship club Sheffield United and the Republic of Ireland national team.
This is a list of works by American author Michael Chabon.