Editing Michael Chabon (section)

===''The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay''===
{{main|The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay}}
Among the supporters of ''Wonder Boys'' was ''[[The Washington Post]]'' critic [[Jonathan Yardley]]; however, despite declaring Chabon "the young star of American letters", Yardley argued that, in his works to that point, Chabon had been preoccupied "with fictional explorations of his own ... It is time for him to move on, to break away from the first person and explore larger worlds."<ref name="yardley">{{cite news |first= Jonathan |last= Yardley|author-link= Jonathan Yardley|title= The Paper Chase |work= The Washington Post Book World|date= March 19, 1995|page= 3}}</ref> Chabon later said that he took Yardley's criticism to heart, explaining, "It chimed with my own thoughts. I had bigger ambitions."<ref name="powell">{{cite news | url = http://www.powells.com/authors/chabon.html | year = 2000 | title = Michael Chabon's Amazing Adventures | last = Weich | first = Dave | publisher = Powells.com | access-date = July 4, 2009 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090705191850/http://www.powells.com/authors/chabon.html | archive-date = July 5, 2009 | df = mdy-all }}</ref> In 1999 he published his second collection of short stories, ''Werewolves in Their Youth'', which included his first published foray into [[genre fiction]],<ref name="eleanor"/> the grim horror story "In the Black Mill".

Shortly after completing ''Wonder Boys'', Chabon discovered a box of comic books from his childhood; a reawakened interest in comics, coupled with memories of the "lore" his [[Brooklyn]]-born father had told him about "the middle years of the twentieth century in America. ...the radio shows, politicians, movies, music, and athletes, and so forth, of that era," inspired him to begin work on a new novel.<ref name="boldty">{{cite web |last= Buchwald|first= Laura|title= A Conversation with Michael Chabon|url= http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/1000/chabon/interview.html|year= 2000|work= Bold Type|publisher= RandomHouse.com|access-date=July 4, 2009}}</ref> In 2000, he published ''The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay'', an epic [[historical fiction|historical novel]] that charts 16 years in the lives of Sammy Clay and Joe Kavalier, two Jewish cousins who create a wildly popular series of comic books in the early 1940s, the years leading up to the entry of the U.S. into World War II. The novel received "nearly unanimous praise" and became a [[New York Times Best Seller list|''New York Times'' Best Seller]],<ref name="eintro"/> eventually winning the 2001 [[Pulitzer Prize for Fiction]]. Chabon reflected that, in writing ''Kavalier & Clay'', "I discovered strengths I had hoped that I possessed—the ability to pull off multiple points of view, historical settings, the passage of years—but which had never been tested before."<ref name="failb">{{cite web |title= Interview with Michael Chabon|url= http://failbetter.com/01/Chabon.htm|issue= Fall/Winter 2000 (Vol. 1, Issue 1)|work= failbetter.com |access-date=July 4, 2009}}</ref>