POP FICTION
Was he a born writer? Not necessarily. What he was, though,
was obsessive, from an early age, which is maybe not all that dif-
ferent. "I always had obsessions, sort of serial obsessions, where I
would just get completely into some thing or topic," he said. "Flags,
Greek mythology, Sherlock Holmes. And it would last a month,
six months, up to a year. That's definitely continued into adult-
hood."
More recent passions have included baseball, Florida ecology,
various movie directors, and of course, the tamales. His first real
writing attempt intertwined two — Sherlock Holmes and Captain
Nemo. He was 13, and the enthusiastic reaction, from parents and
teacher, convinced him this was where his future lay.
His parents divorced when
he was 11, his doctor/lawyer
father moving to Pitts-
burgh, where Mr. Chabon
later went to the University
of Pittsburgh, and where
both novels are set. He and
his younger brother stayed
in Columbia with their
said, 'Eggs and bacon,' and my mother kicked me under the table.
`Don't tell bubbie.' That was the message."
Mr. Chabon's first mar iage, to another writer, while both were
in graduate school at the University of California-Irvine, ended
after a few years. At the time, the fact that she wasn't Jewish
hadn't seemed a decisive factor in the breakup; the fact that his
first novel had been snapped up for $155,000 and published to ac-
claim seemed far more disruptive (she had been writing much
longer, without much success).
But later he began to wonder, and to be thankful they hadn't
had children. His present wife, born in Israel, is "very Jewish iden-
tified."
And recently he has found
himself thinking more about
religion in general, perhaps
because of Sophie. Religion
and the question of loss.
"I have the sense, and I
think a lot of Jews my age
have the sense, that there are
a lot of things that are just
"I HAVE THE SENSE THAT
THERE AREA LOT OF THINGS
JUST ABOUT TO DISAPPEAR
COMPLETELY FROM
THE WORLD."
38
mother, who instantly en-
rolled in law school (the
family is top-heavy with
lawyers on both sides). "She
flourished, after the di-
vorce," he said. And he? "I
learned to cook," he offered,
after a moment. Mr. Chabon
is still close to both parents and his brother, Steve, 28, an aspir-
ing actor who 21so lives in L.A.
Religion was nothing he thought about much in those days,
though he did take a pre-bar mitzvah class on Kabbalah, or Jew-
ish mysticism, given by Rabbi Martin Siegel of the independent
Columbia Jewish Congregation. "I remember being impressed by
how seriously he was taking it," the author said. "He did this little
thing with meditation, staring into a flame of a candle — when
you're 13 that's kind of neat."
Rabbi Siegel remembers the author well. He last saw Mr. Chabon
during his 1988 book tour, at a Columbia bookstore. "He said I'd
really inspired him. It was very nice, very generous," the rabbi
said. Mr. Chabon, he feels, is "a very bright guy, definitely searching
within the spiritual." He was impressed that Mr. Chabon had
remembered his comments on the flame so well. "He quoted them
to me. The flame shows the nature of life. All we know is the bright
flame, but there is a dark center. At the center of existence is the
ultimate mystery."
As a kid, Mr. Chabon also was impressed that Rabbi Siegel had
written a book, Amen, a journal of a year in his life with a Long Is-
land congregation. At the time, it was considered quite contro-
versial. "Not only was it on our shelves, but on other people's
shelves, people who didn't even have him as a rabbi!" he said.
The family attended synagogue occasionally, and "went through
phases of lighting candles." In the main, though, observance was
a matter of "dribs and drabs. I remember going to my great-grand-
mother's house and she asked what we'd had for breakfast and I
about to disappear complete-
ly from the world," he said
thoughtfully. "That genera-
tion that's now in their 70s
(and older), the immigrants
and children of immigrants
... their whole culture. The so-
cialism, the socialist summer
camps, the bottle of seltzer on the table. That stuff was still very
present when I was a kid. I had plenty of old relatives, we'd go to
their houses and that would be there and I got to really stoke it
up.
"But then I look at Sophie and I think, she's never going to see
any of that." His wife has a couple of older relatives living in Mon-
treal. "If we can get there, if they hang on," he said wistfully. Maybe
then his daughter will get a glimpse, at least.
He is aware, too, of the Jewish writers who went before him,
paving the way. Writers who were locked in a pitched battle with
their parents' generation, fighting for the right to express them-
selves as individuals. "Those guys, Roth, Malamud, Bellow, it was
a real struggle for them, the whole process of assimilation."
A great deal of Sturm and Drang, followed, suddenly, by silence.
The war was over, the battle won. Or was it? Mr. Chabon isn't
sure.
"I'm assimilated. The struggles that went on in the previous
generation enabled me to arrive at this point, where I feel I'm an
American. If I'm going to be a Jew it's because I really want to be.
I have to go back now and bridge the breach that was opened up."
To find and retrieve some of those things that were left by the
wayside, in the dash toward assimilation?
"Exactly," he said. "Maybe when all those things were being re-
jected ... to fit in, or because it was the only way to get ahead ...
some things were thrown away that needn't have been. Things I
would like to bring back."
Yiddish, for one. Here Mr. Chabon, a child of his generation in