Michael Chabon & Ayelet Waldman
Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman live in a large, comfortable, craftsman-style house in the Berkeley flats, the sort of home that seems more suited to a professor at the nearby University of California than to one of the most celebrated writers of his generation and his Harvard Law Schoolâeducated wife turned acclaimed novelist, essayist, and social media provocateur. But the Waldman-Chabon householdâwhich at any given time might include up to four kids from high school to grad school age and a labradoodle named Agnesâseems intent on a life of upper-middle-class normalcy rather than literary celebrity. This even as they ramp up their sideline as Hollywood producers whose slate of upcoming projects includes adaptations of Michaelâs Pulitzer Prizeâwinning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and Ayeletâs nonfiction account of her experiences microdosing LSD to deal with her debilitating mood disorder, A Really Good Day.
Our interview is a reunion of sorts. Nancy first met Michael in 2003 at the offices of HarperCollins, where he mentioned how much he and Ayelet appreciated a rave review Nancy had given Ayeletâs book Daughterâs Keeper in Library Journal. Jeff first interviewed Michael in 1988, an assignment he barely remembers and Michael remembers not at all. âI was still trying to figure out if I should wear a tie to interviews,â he says, recalling those days when he was first the toast of the literary world, thanks to his radiant debut novel The Mysteries of Pittsburgh. Twenty-five years later Jeff would dramatize Kavalier & Clay for a five-hour stage production in Seattle that Michael never got to seeâthough he did read the reviews, which were, happily, positive.
Michael and Ayeletâs enthusiasm for todayâs subject, their love of books, is obvious from the get-go. Settling in over hot tea (Nancy and Jeff) and peanut butter and banana sandwiches (Ayelet and Michael), they traded off with bursts of excitement as they talked about the joy of reading and their particular areas of literary interest (some shared, some not) from childhood to the present day.
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NANCY: Ayelet, tell us about yourself as a young reader.
AYELET: First of all, I didnât read until I was in third grade. It turns out I was dyslexic, though I didnât realize that until after Michael and I had our kids. A couple of them read late, and we were sitting in an appointment with a neuro-psych evaluator, having our kidâs diagnosis and symptoms described to us, when I realized, âOh my God! Thatâs me!â
When I started to read, I went from literally not being able to sound out words to reading Little House in the Big Woods [by Laura Ingalls Wilder] in a weekend. I dove into the rest of the series over the next week. I was completely crazy about those books. Just passionately devoted. And after that I didnât stop. I loved book series, especially science-fiction series. Thereâs a book called Half Magic that was my favorite, favorite, favorite book. I loved all the authorâs other books as wellâremind me of his name.
MICHAEL and NANCY: Edward Eager.
AYELET: Edward Eager. All of his books. Roald Dahl. The Narnia books. [To Michael:] Whatâs that series that I loved when I was a kid that Iâve told you about and now I canât remember the name of?
MICHAEL: You donât mean Roger Zelazny? You mean when you were a teenager though, right?
AYELET: Zelazny, sure.
NANCY: Was it the [Chronicles of] Amber booksâNine Princes in Amber?
AYELET: Amber! Yes!
MICHAEL: Theyâre pretty adult.
AYELET: I was twelve, thirteen when I read them. When I started to read, thatâs all I did. I didnât have a lot of friends. We had a black-and-white TV. And anyway there wasnât anything on. So all I did, all the time, was read. I had no hobbies. [Laughter.] Didnât play any sports. I could barely ride a bike.
MICHAEL: Tell them about The Happy Hollisters [by Jerry West, pseudonym for Andrew E. Svenson] in the libraryâ
AYELET: Do you know the series The Happy Hollisters? I loved The Happy Hollisters. More than the Bobbsey Twins [series by many authors, writing under the name Laura Lee Hope]. More than Nancy Drew [this series also by many authors, writing under the name Carolyn Keene]. There was a girl in my class in Providence who told me about a private library that had a collection of The Happy Hollisters. My parents never had any money, but I begged them to join this library so that I could read the books. We went to the library and it was so beautiful.
NANCY: The Athenaeum?
AYELET: Exactly, the Athenaeum! My parents joined. I remember it was very, very expensive, but they joined so that I could get the books I was so desperate to read. And of course they didnât have The Happy Hollisters. I was so ashamed and unhappy when we went, even though they had this amazing childrenâs section. But I felt like I had forced my parents to spend more money than could ever be justified. I never allowed myself to enjoy the library. Eventually I told my mother about how I felt about the Athenaeum and she said, âI donât know what youâre talking about. It was like sixty bucks a year. Of course we could afford that.â So I had ruined the Athenaeum for myself for nothing.
MICHAEL: All because of The Happy Hollisters.
AYELET: All because of The Happy Hollisters. After my childrenâs series phase, I went through a very intense romance novel phase. But only gothic romances. I loved them. I would read as many as ten a weekâtwo a day or more. If the jacket had a woman with a heaving bosom and a gown, I was all there.
MICHAEL: Didnât you read Georgette Heyer?
NANCY: Oh, Heyer is like my comfort food. Iâve reread my favorites over and over.
MICHAEL: They kind of carry on the Jane Austen tradition.
AYELET: I mean, thatâs whatâs amazing. There was a librarian who had been watching me gobble all these books up, and one day she said, âHey, why donât you try this book?â It looked similar. On the cover the girl didnât have boobs, but she was wearing a pretty dress and she was standing next to a gorgeous man and it seemed good enough, so I took it home. And it was Pride and Prejudice [by Jane Austen]! So that was the first quality adult book that I read. I read a lot of quality fiction for young people, but that was the first quality adult book that I read.
NANCY: What about Judy Blume?
AYELET: Obviously, Judy Blume. When I met Judy Blume for the first time, we were at a party and I rushed up to her, managing to spill my drink all over the table. I gushed, âOh my God!â and went on and on about how exciting it was to meet her, how her books changed my life. She was so nice. We talked for pretty much the rest of the evening, so I was there to watch one hundred and seventy-five women in their forties rush up to her gushing, âOh my God!â...
