Acclaimed Author, Emasculated Husband to Speak


Michael “[Clandestine Gay Profiteer](http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:RLoj9nzZBjMJ:www.nytimes.com/books/00/09/24/reviews/000924.24buz.html+%22Michael+Chabon:+Comics+Came+First%22&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)” Chabon, author of the Pulitzer-winning *[The Amazing A](http://www.amazon.com/Amazing-Adventures-Kavalier-Clay/dp/0312282990/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257833087&sr=1-1)**[dventures of Kavalier and Clay](http://www.amazon.com/Amazing-Adventures-Kavalier-Clay/dp/0312282990/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257833087&sr=1-1)* is [coming to Stanford](http://events.stanford.edu/events/205/20527/) to speak on Notions of Home. Still, for the author of a book called *[Manhood for Amateurs](http://www.amazon.com/Manhood-Amateurs-Pleasures-Regrets-Husband/dp/0061490180)*, released this October, Mr. Chabon could use a few pointers on that topic. Consider, if you will, scenes from the Chabon-Waldman household. From what I’ve gathered, the Mr. Chabon seems to let his wife, Ayelet Waldman, author of the [Mommy Track Mysteries](http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_2_6?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=ayelet+waldman+mommy+track+mysteries&x=0&y=0&sprefix=ayelet)*, * run their home in ways that some might describe as eccentric.

On parenting :

I am not a good mother. I am in fact a bad mother. I love my husband more than I love my children.

What if, God forbid, someone were to snatch one of my children? God forbid. I imagine what it would feel like to lose one or even all of them. I imagine myself consumed, destroyed by the pain. And yet, in these imaginings, there is always a future beyond the child’s death. Because if I were to lose one of my children, God forbid, even if I lost all my children, God forbid, I would still have him, my husband.

On sexual education:

Sarah Palin has pretty much proved that you can wish for abstinence all you want, but kids are still going to be boning each other in the backseat of the car. So I feel like I have prepare them for it; I have to teach them how to be responsible and respectful, and also prepare them for the idea that it’s a wonderful thing, if done in the right way. So that’s why I put condoms in the bathroom.

On why their daughter may have not enjoyed Chabon’s debut novel:

While [their eldest daughter] has kept clear of Mr. Chabon’s 2001 Pulitzer-winning “Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,” she did recently finish reading “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh,” Mr. Chabon’s first novel, a coming-of-age story about a bisexual man recently graduated from the University of Pittsburgh, where Mr. Chabon himself had just finished when he started writing the book in the spring of 1985.

“She did not enjoy the experience,” Mr. Chabon said of his daughter’s read. “She just wasn’t ready to think of me as having ever been young or smoking cigarettes.”

Ms. Waldman jumped in: “Or being sexually active, sleeping with men.”

On Santa Claus:

I told [my daughter] Sophie, as I have since told her younger siblings, that there is no such thing as Santa Claus, that he is a character in a story just like Willy Wonka or Amelia Bedelia. I further instruct them that their Christian friends are sweet but gullible, and out of respect for their limitations, we should all work hard to sustain their delusions for as long as possible.

If this sounds like your cup of tea, may I suggest a donation?  Or you could go to the event and ask about how this fits into his notion of home. Or about how he hates circumcision. It’s totally up to you.