Sparkles and Plods, by Kevin R. Kosar, November 30, 2008
This is Chabon’s first novel, and it reads like it. It’s ambitious, wooly, underdeveloped, messy, and contrived.
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh is the first-person tale of Art Bechstein, the college-age son of a gangster in Pittsburgh. Art is rather clueless; though he narrates the entire story, he’s not very good at explaining why he is such a headcase. Frequently, Art inexplicably bursts into tears while in the company of his father.
The reader can’t help but roll his eyes as anxious Art falls in love with a peculiar girl, and then wrecks it by sleeping with a poseur fop named Arthur. Bechstein also foolishly gets involved with a reprobate named Cleveland, who happens to work for a gangster, thereby pulling Art more into his father’s world, a world he wished did not exist.
The novel has many beautiful bits, but as the story plods on they are fewer and fewer.