Editing Michael Chabon (section)

== Interest in genre fiction ==
In a 2002 essay, Chabon decried the state of modern short fiction (including his own), saying that, with rare exceptions, it consisted solely of "the contemporary, quotidian, plotless, moment-of-truth revelatory story."<ref name="treas">{{cite book |title= McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales|url= https://archive.org/details/mcsweeneysmammot00chab_960|url-access= limited|last= Chabon|first= Michael|editor1-first= Michael|editor1-last= Chabon |year= 2002 |publisher= Vintage |location= New York |isbn= 1-4000-3339-X |chapter= The Editor's Notebook: A Confidential Chat with the Editor |page= [https://archive.org/details/mcsweeneysmammot00chab_960/page/n150 6] }}</ref> In an apparent reaction against these "plotless [stories] sparkling with epiphanic dew," Chabon's post-2000 work has been marked by an increased interest in [[genre fiction]] and plot. While ''The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay'' was, like ''The Mysteries of Pittsburgh'' and ''Wonder Boys'', an essentially realistic, contemporary novel (whose plot happened to revolve around comic-book superheroes), Chabon's subsequent works—such as ''The Final Solution'', his dabbling with comic-book writing, and the "swashbuckling adventure" of ''Gentlemen of the Road''—have been almost exclusively devoted to mixing aspects of genre and literary fiction. Perhaps the most notable example of this is ''[[The Yiddish Policemen's Union]]'', which won five genre awards, including the [[Hugo Award for Best Novel|Hugo Award]] and [[Nebula Award for Best Novel|Nebula Award]].<ref name = "monitor"/> Chabon seeks to "annihilate" not the genres themselves, but the bias against certain genres of fiction such as fantasy, science fiction and romance.<ref name="monitor"/>

Chabon's forays into genre fiction have met with mixed critical reaction. One science fiction short story by Chabon, "The Martian Agent", was described by a reviewer as "enough to send readers back into the cold but reliable arms of ''The New Yorker''."<ref name="nyti">{{cite news | url = https://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/books/review/14FRIEDEL.html?ex=1169269200&en=7121467ab5fe9b6d&ei=5070 |date = November 14, 2004 | title = 'The Final Solution': Bird of the Baskervilles |last = Friedell |first = Deborah | work = [[The New York Times]] | access-date = July 4, 2009|format = book review}}</ref> Another critic wrote of the same story that it was "richly plotted, action-packed", and that "Chabon skilfully elaborates his world and draws not just on the [[steampunk]] worlds of [[William Gibson]], [[Bruce Sterling]] and [[Michael Moorcock]], but on alternate histories by brilliant science fiction mavericks such as [[Avram Davidson]] and [[Howard Waldrop]]. The imperial politics are craftily resonant and the story keeps us hanging on."<ref name="tls">{{cite web | title = On the trail of a genre high | url = http://www.powells.com/review/2003_10_19 |date = October 19, 2003 |last = Quinn |first = Paul | work = [[The Times Literary Supplement]] |format = book review, reprint hosted at powells.com | access-date = July 4, 2009}}</ref> While ''[[The Village Voice]]'' called ''The Final Solution'' "an ingenious, fully imagined work, an expert piece of literary [[ventriloquism]], and a mash note to the beloved boys' tales of Chabon's youth,"<ref>{{cite news|last = Conn|first = Andrew Lewis|title = What Up, Holmes? Michael Chabon and the World's Most Famous Detective|date = November 9, 2004|access-date = July 4, 2009|work = The Village Voice|url = http://www.villagevoice.com/books/0445,conn,58257,10.html|format = book review|archive-date = December 9, 2007|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071209155943/http://www.villagevoice.com/books/0445,conn,58257,10.html|url-status = dead}}</ref> ''[[The Boston Globe]]'' wrote, "[T]he genre of the comic book is an anemic vein for novelists to mine, lest they squander their brilliance."<ref>{{cite news | url = https://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2004/12/26/chabons_wartime_solution_is_murder_most_bland/?page=1 |date = December 26, 2004 | title = Chabon's Wartime 'Solution' is Murder Most Bland |last = Jensen | first = Kurt| work = [[The Boston Globe]]|format = book review | access-date = July 4, 2009}}</ref> ''The New York Times'' states that the detective story, "a genre that is by its nature so constrained, so untransgressive, seems unlikely to appeal to the real writer," but adds that "... Chabon makes good on his claim: a successful detective story need not be lacking in literary merit."<ref name="nyti"/>

In 2005, Chabon argued against the idea that genre fiction and entertaining fiction should not appeal to "the real writer", saying that the common perception is that "Entertainment ... means junk.... [But] maybe the reason for the junkiness of so much of what pretends to entertain us is that we have accepted—indeed, we have helped to articulate—such a narrow, debased concept of entertainment.... I'd like to believe that, because I read for entertainment, and I write to entertain. Period."<ref>Chabon, Michael. "Introduction." ''The Best American Short Stories 2005''. Ed. Michael Chabon. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005.</ref>

One of the more positive responses to Chabon's brand of "trickster literature" appeared in ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine, whose critic [[Lev Grossman]] wrote that "This is literature in mid-transformation.... [T]he highbrow and the lowbrow, once kept chastely separate, are now hooking up, [and] you can almost see the future of literature coming."<ref name="pop">{{cite news|last = Grossman |first = Lev|author-link = Lev Grossman|title = Pop Goes the Literature|url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1009722,00.html |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080306173441/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1009722,00.html |url-status = dead |archive-date = March 6, 2008 |date = December 17, 2004|magazine = [[Time (magazine)|Time]]|access-date = July 4, 2009}}</ref> Grossman classed Chabon with a movement of authors similarly eager to blend literary and popular writing, including [[Jonathan Lethem]] (with whom Chabon is friends),<ref name="eleanor"/> [[Margaret Atwood]], and [[Susanna Clarke]].

On the other hand, in [[Slate (magazine)|''Slate'']] in 2007, [[Ruth Franklin]] said, "Michael Chabon has spent considerable energy trying to drag the decaying corpse of genre fiction out of the shallow grave where writers of serious literature abandoned it."<ref>{{cite web |last= Franklin|first= Ruth |title= God's Frozen People: Michael Chabon Carves Out a Jewish State in Alaska|url= http://www.slate.com/id/2165763/|date= May 8, 2007|work= [[Slate (magazine)|Slate]]|access-date=July 4, 2009}}</ref>

===The Van Zorn persona===
For some of his own genre work, Chabon has forged an unusual horror/fantasy fiction persona under the name of August Van Zorn. More elaborately developed than a pseudonym, August Van Zorn is purported to be a pen name for one Albert Vetch (1899–1963).<ref name="vetch">Chabon (1995). p. 3.</ref> In Chabon's 1995 novel ''Wonder Boys'', narrator Grady Tripp writes that he grew up in the same hotel as Vetch, who worked as an English professor at the (nonexistent) Coxley College and wrote hundreds of [[Pulp magazine|pulp]] stories that were "in the gothic mode, after the manner of [[H. P. Lovecraft|Lovecraft]] ... but written in a dry, ironic, at times almost whimsical idiom."<ref name="vetch"/> A horror-themed short story titled "In the Black Mill" was published in ''[[Playboy]]'' in June 1997 and reprinted in Chabon's 1999 story collection ''Werewolves in Their Youth'', and was attributed to Van Zorn.<ref>{{cite news |last= Gorra|first= Michael |title= Endangered Species|url= https://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/31/books/endangered-species.html|date= January 31, 1999|work= [[The New York Times]] |access-date=July 2, 2009}}</ref>

Chabon has created a comprehensive bibliography<ref name="worksvanzorn">{{cite web|last= Chabon |first= Michael |url=http://www.michaelchabon.com/vanzorn_works.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020612211200/http://michaelchabon.com/vanzorn_works.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=June 12, 2002 |title=Works of August Van Zorn |publisher=michaelchabon.com at the [[Internet Archive]] |access-date=July 1, 2009}}</ref> for Van Zorn, along with an equally fictional literary scholar devoted to his oeuvre named Leon Chaim Bach.<ref name="sween">{{cite web |title=The August Van Zorn Prize for the Weird Short Story |url=http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/vanzorn/ |work=McSweeney's Internet Tendency |publisher=[[McSweeney's]] |access-date=July 4, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091104054822/http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/vanzorn/ |archive-date=November 4, 2009 |url-status=dead |df=mdy }}</ref> Bach's now-defunct website<ref name="vanzorn2">{{cite web |last=Chabon |first= Michael |url=http://www.michaelchabon.com/vanzorn.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020611053300/http://michaelchabon.com/vanzorn.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=June 11, 2002 |title=Van Zorn Website |publisher=michaelchabon.com at the Internet Archive |access-date=July 1, 2009}}</ref> (which existed under the auspices of Chabon's) declared Van Zorn to be, "without question, the greatest unknown horror writer of the twentieth century," and mentioned that Bach had once edited a collection of short stories by Van Zorn titled ''The Abominations of Plunkettsburg''.<ref>{{cite web|last=Chabon |first= Michael |title = About ''Abominations''|url = http://www.michaelchabon.com/vanzorn_about.html|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20020612211736/http://michaelchabon.com/vanzorn_about.html|url-status = dead|archive-date = June 12, 2002|access-date = July 1, 2009|work = michaelchabon.com}}</ref> (The name "Leon Chaim Bach" is an [[anagram]] of "Michael Chabon", as is "Malachi B. Cohen", the name of a fictional comics expert who wrote occasional essays about the Escapist for the character's Dark Horse Comics series.) In 2004, Chabon established the August Van Zorn Prize, "awarded to the short story that most faithfully and disturbingly embodies the tradition of the weird short story as practiced by [[Edgar Allan Poe]] and his literary descendants, among them August Van Zorn."<ref name="eleanor"/> The first recipient of the prize was [[Jason Roberts (author)|Jason Roberts]], whose winning story, "7C", was then included in ''McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories'', edited by Chabon.<ref name="sween"/>

A scene in the film adaptation of Chabon's novel ''The Mysteries of Pittsburgh'' shows two characters in a bookstore stocking August Van Zorn books.