Telegraph Avenue

The most common accusations against this book are: 1. It's too wordy; 2. It's racist.

Yes, it is wordy. It's a Michael Chabon book, so there's no chance that it will NOT be wordy. However, I like words, and he uses enough active verbs to keep me interested.

“It's racist” - hmmm. I don't know that I agree. Books that paint any ethnicity as flawless are boring and hollow and false, and I have little patience for them. Having characters that are complicated, that are nice people but who not infrequently do stupid or annoying or self-centered things, well it rings true. I think that the negativity comes from the fact that the author is white, and that most of the characters are black, and so readers feel like he is being disrespectful to the black community when he creates flaws in his black characters; if Chabon was black not one person would call this book racist.