Summerland

An unforgettable novel from one of America’s greatest living storytellers, ‘Summerland’ is about redemption and the true nature of heroism.

Ethan is a young hero on a quest though the strange world of American Faery. Since baseball is the favourite game of American fairies, or ‘ferishers’ as the North American Fairy Folk call themselves, this is necessarily a story of baseball, too. Zeppelins, werefoxes, Indians and Indian mythology, sasquatches, wendigos, Alaska, the haunted 161-year-old husk of George Armstrong Custer, and a boy who thinks he’s an android, also figure in the action. Along the way, the hero and heroine find themselves and each other; a band of ferishers triumphs over their ancient enemy and finally find someone new to play baseball against; a widower’s heart will heal as his airship conquers the northern sky; and a burned-out Colombian slugger named Rodrigo Buendia will find redemption in discovering, with Ethan Feld and Jennifer T. Rideout, the true nature of heroism.

Reviews

‘An epic fantasy for modern America.’ Sunday Times

‘Chabon’s quirky, fluent style holds no hint of condescension and is sprinkled with wry remarks that will delight the young teenager.’ Daily Telegraph

‘Perhaps the surest sign of “Summerland’s success is how the language of Chabon’s fictional universe stays with you and the way he achieves a sweet genuinely affecting ending.’ Time Out

Praise for ‘The Yiddish Policemen’s Union’:

‘His almost ecstatically smart and sassy new novel…Chabon is a spectacular writer…a language magician. He has you laughing out loud, applauding the fun he has with language and the way he takes the task of a writer and runs delighted rings around it.’ Guardian

‘Michael Chabon’s brilliant new novel starts with a bang…It hums with humour. It buzzes with gags…the accumulated reading experience is one of admiration, close to awe, at the vigour of Chabon’s imagination…a hilarious, antic whirl of a novel.’ Sunday Times

‘It makes film noir look like film blanc by comparison.’ Arena

About the author

Michael Chabon is the author of two collections of short stories, ‘A Model World’ and ‘Werewolves in their Youth’, the novels ‘The Mysteries of Pittsburgh’, ‘Wonder Boys’, ‘The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay’, ‘The Yiddish Policemen’s Union’ and ‘Telegraph Avenue’, and the non-fiction books ‘Maps and Legends and Manhood for Amateurs’. ‘Wonder Boys’ has been made into a film starring Michael Douglas and Robert Downey Jr. and ‘The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay’ won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His short stories have appeared in the New Yorker, GQ, Esquire and Playboy. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife and their four children.