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My first encounter with Michael Chabon’s work was the film adaptation of his second novel, Wonder Boys, which I saw on video while I was working in a video rental store. I watched a lot of movies in the six months I was there (free rentals were one of the perks) otherwise I might have missed it entirely, as so many other people did. It was one of my favourite movies for quite a while after that. I get into quite a few authors through film, but for some reason the fact that Wonder Boys was an adaptation completely passed me by. In fact, I still haven’t read it (though it’s on my list). So the first Chabon novel I’ve read is his debut, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh.

It’s a coming-of-age story. The feckless Art Bechstein, recently graduated student of the University of Pittsburgh spends the summer falling in love with a Machiavellian young man and a strange-but-interesting girl. Chabon’s style is elaborate enough to entertain. Unfortunately the plot is slight enough that it nearly collapses from the weight of all those baroque descriptions.

I really like the way Chabon writes, but in this debut novel, what he writes about just isn’t satisfying. There are several threads to the novel that slowly draw together, but they lumber along and the final collision is predictable and unspectacular. As the novel progressed beyond its lively opening chapters, I found it increasingly difficult to care about the events. Maybe the bisexual plot-line was more interesting in 1988, but twenty-years on there’s bisexual characters even in TV shows like Doctor Who.

But it’s Chabon’s first novel, and despite the nitpicking above, I did enjoy it. So I’m definitely going to pick up Wonder Boys at some point; after all I already know that enjoyed that plot.