This is Chabon's first novel, written while still a student. He received something like $150,000 for it while most first time novelists get about $6 - 7 K. I have to eventually get to all his work and basically this book was kind of like his M.O. for all his books. Some parts amazing, other parts kind of slow, and some parts kind of shocking. Anyway Mysteries started out well, had some definite good wackiness (Phlox), then got interesting, and then ended shockingly. So I enjoyed the first 2/3 but not the last third. I mean overall the novel was good and I just have to admit that I had a hard time enjoying the homosexual relationship described in the book. I'm not a homophobe but to read about two men having sexual relations is just not easy to read. It did fit with the book so I'm ok with it but it isn't easy to enjoy.
page 39: "It was as though she had studied American notions of beauty from some great distance and had come all this way only to find she had overdone the clothes, a debutante from another planet"
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