Maps and Legends

Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands

Michael Chabon

• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Year: 2011
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9781453234136
• Subtopic: Authorship
• Index: Literature

The Pulitzer Prize winner explores the literary joys of sci-fi and superheroes, gumshoes and goblins, and the stories that bring us together.
"I read for entertainment, and I write to entertain. Period." Such is the manifesto of Michael Chabon, an author of indisputable literary renown who maintains a fierce appreciation of the seductive arts of so-called "genre" fiction.
 
In this lively collection of sixteen critical and personal essays, the author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay champions the cause of westerns, horror, and all the stories, comics, and pulp fiction that get pushed aside when literary discussion turns serious. Whether he's taking up Superman or Sherlock Holmes, Poe or Proust, Chabon makes it his emphatic mission to explore the reasons we tell one another tales.
 
Throughout, Chabon reveals his own blooming as a writer, from The Mysteries of Pittsburgh to The Yiddish Policeman's Union. He is living proof of his theory that the stories that give us great pleasure are in many ways our truest, best art—the building blocks of our shared imagination—and in Maps and Legends, he "makes an inviting case for bridging the gap between popular and literary writing" ( O, The Oprah Magazine).
 
This ebook features a biography of the author.

Index with Recommended Reading

Index prepared by author

A | B | C | D | E
F | G | H | I | J
K | L | M | N | O
P | R | S | T
V | W | Z

Abelard, Peter, 2

Acker, Kathy, 9

Adams, Neal, 90, 129

Aickman, Robert, 13

Alexander, Lloyd, 20

The Book of Three. New York: Henry Holt, 2006.

Andersen, Hans Christian, 112

Asimov, Isaac, 9

Austen, Jane, 10

Auster, Paul, 9

Babel, Isaac, 153

Baker, Kyle, 90

Ballard, J.G., 87, 97, 136

Balzac, Honoré de, 7, 109

Baring-Gould, William, 43, 44

Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street. New York: Random House, 1995.

Bartel, Dennis, 134

Barthelme, Donald, 136, 177

Bender, Aimee, 13

Benford, Gregory, 177

Across the Sea of Suns. New York: Warner, 2004.

Timescape. New York: Bantam, 1992. Benjamin, Walter, 11

“The Storyteller.” Selected Writings, Vol. 3, 1935–1938. Trans. Edmund Jephcott, Howard Eiland, et al. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006

Bester, Alfred, 86–88

The Demolished Man. New York: Vintage, 1996

The Stars of My Destination. New York: Vintage, 1996

Blackwood, Algernon, 110

Blake, William, 71

Blume, Judy, 192

Borges, Jorge Luis, 13, 117, 124, 136

Bradbury, Ray, 141, 176

Brookner, Anita, 13

Brooks, Peter, 34

Reading for the Plot. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992.

Brunner, John, 87

Buchan, John, 65

Buckler, Rich, 87

Buckler, Rich and Doug Moench.

Astonishing Tales Featuring Deathlok the Demolisher! #25 (Aug. 1974), Marvel Comics.

Burroughs, Edgar Rice, 38

Burroughs, William S., 87

Byatt, A.S., 13

Byrne, John, 83

Calvino, Italo, 13, 136, 142

Invisible Cities. Trans. William Weaver. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978.

Caniff, Milton, 89

Capp, Al, 90

Carlyle, Thomas, 29

Carter, Angela, 11

Cervantes, Miguel de, 27, 40

Don Quixote. Trans. Edith Grossman. New York: Ecco, 2003.

Chabon, Michael, 130, 139, 146, 149, 150, 154, 178, 193, 209

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. New York: Picador, 2000.

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.

Wonder Boys. New York: Random House, 2008.

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. New York: HarperCollins, 2007.

Chandler, Raymond, 7, 9, 33, 38, 56, 92, 176, 177

“The King in Yellow.” Collected Stories. New York: Knopf, 2002.

The Long Goodbye. New York: Vintage, 1988.

Chaykin, Howard, 85–93

American Flagg! Berkeley: Image Comics, 2008.

Ironwolf #l (1986), DC Comics.

The Scorpion #1 (Feb. 1975), Atlas Comics.

Cheever, John, 7

Chekhov, Anton, 120

Cheuse, Alan, 98

Christopher, John, 97

No Blade of Grass. New York: Avon, 1986.

Claremont, Chris, 83

Clarke, Arthur C., 91

Clute, John, 56

Colby, C. B. (Joseph Adler, Victor Fischer), 192–199, 202–205, 207, 209

Strangely Enough! New York: Scholastic, 1963.

Collier, John, 97

Tom’s A-Cold. London: Macmillan, 1933.

Conrad, Joseph, 7, 18, 37

The Heart of Darkness. New York: Norton, 2005.

Cooper, James Fenimore, 56

Cooper, Susan, 67

The Dark Is Rising. New York: Simon Pulse, 2007.

Coover, Robert, 153

The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. New York: New American Library, 1971.

Coppard, Alfred Edgar, 7

Crowley, John, 13

d’Aulaire, Edgar Parin and Ingri, 47–51, 53

D’Aulaires’ Book of Norse Myths. New York: New York Review Books, 2005.

Defoe, Daniel, 104, 105

Robinson Crusoe. New York: Penguin, 2003.

Dent, Lester, 189

Doc Savage Magazine #1 (Mar. 1933), Street and Smith.

Dick, Philip K., 87, 88

Dickens, Charles, 29, 119

Bleak House. New York: Penguin, 2003.

The Old Curiosity Shop. New York: Knopf, 1995.

Ditko, Steve, 126, 129

Doyle, Arthur Conan, 23, 24, 26–44, 65, 158, 176, 190, 191

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. New York: Scholastic, 2004.

The Lost World. New York: Penguin, 2008.

The Return of Sherlock Holmes. New York: Penguin, 1982.

The Sign of Four. Stilwell, KS: Digireads.com Publishing, 2005.

A Study in Scarlet. Stilwell, KS: Digireads.com Publishing, 2005.

Eisner, Will, 76, 126, 129–132

Blackhawk Archives, Vol. 1. New York: DC Comics, 2001.

Doll Man #1 (19...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Trickster in a Suit of Lights: Thoughts on the Modern Short Story
• Maps and Legends
• Fan Fictions: On Sherlock Holmes
• Ragnarok Boy
• On Daemons & Dust
• Kids' Stuff
• The Killer Hook: Howard Chaykin's American Flagg!
• Dark Adventure: On Cormac McCarthy's The Road
• The Other James
• Landsman of the Lost
• Thoughts on the Death of Will Eisner
• My Back Pages
• Diving into the Wreck
• The Recipe for Life
• Imaginary Homelands
• Golems I Have Known, or, Why My Elder Son's Middle Name Is Napoleon
• Secret Skin: An Essay in Unitard Theory
• A Biography of Michael Chabon
• Index and Recommended Reading
• Copyright Page