The Mysteries of Pittsburgh

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, by Michael Chabon, is his first novel, published in 1988. He started writing it as an undergrad and submitted it as his thesis for his M.F.A. One of his advisors sent it to a literary agent, and Chabon was published at twenty-five years old.

Pittsburgh is a coming-of-age novel. It follows Art Bechstein, son of a big money man for the Pittsburgh mob, during the summer after his graduation from college. Art befriends a group of wacky characters including the flamboyantly gay Arthur Lecomte, wildman and mob "pickup boy" Cleveland, and the gorgeous Phlox Lombardi, and has a summer filled with booze, drugs, and sexual escapades, with the odd bit of danger to life and limb mixed in.

It's not a great book. It's good - as a first novel it's quite impressive. To see where Chabon started and how he could produce a masterpiece like The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay some 12 years later is fantastic. Chabon's an excellent writer. He uses once of the most extensive vocabularies of any modern writer in my experience and he has a flair for a nice turn of phrase. Pittsburgh is fun, funny, and sad in parts - it's a boozy, sexually-charged youthful romp, but it's more than that. I'm not sure how much of Chabon is written into the novel, but probably more than a little.

I'm glad I read this after having read the tremendous Kavalier and Clay, because I feel like I understand Chabon better as an author. However, if Pittsburgh had been the first novel of his I had read, I would be less inclined to read more of him. As a standalone read it's decent, but as a glimpse into how an accomplished author got his start, it's well worth it.