A Model World: And Other Stories

Chabon’s dazzling first story collection reveals lives anchored in fantasy but disrupted by surprising realities

In these eleven elegant tales, characters hold tight to private dreams even as their closest relationships crumble. Five stories follow Nathan Shapiro from the spoiled beach vacation where he learns of his parents’ divorce through his anxious adolescence and a woefully misguided crush. Other stories find ex-lovers tormenting each other at an oceanside café, a has-been baseball pro at the funeral of a more successful teammate, and a Pittsburgh disc jockey still pining for a woman who married him to get her American citizenship. Graceful, witty, and moving, the stories of A Model World helped establish Chabon as one of America’s most distinctive fiction writers and prose stylists. This ebook features a biography of the author.