TELEGRAPH AVENUE

by Michael Chabon

I listened to this author interviewed on the radio as I drove home from work one evening. The book is about two friends from different demographic backgrounds who work in a record store on Telegraph Avenue, the stretch of road that goes from Oakland to Berkeley. I had previously read The Yiddish Policemen's Union, and this book is in the same vein. There's this cerebral quirkiness, an overload of pop culture allusions, and such straining by the author to be clever, that I think many readers will find distracting and annoying. But many will find it endearing. If Chabon can ever tame his talent he might one day live up to all the encomiums his work receives from critics.