Your First Time

Emily and I have an informal book exchange in which we try and push our literary tastes on the other. Since she has excellent taste, this works out rather well for me while she gets stuck reading Chuck Palahniuk novels. Anyway, she's been trying to get me to read Michael Chabon's first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, for quite some time and I finally cracked it open this weekend.

It's his first novel, and there is rarely anything in literature (or film or movies) as exciting as someone's first work. There is the limitless potential of what is going to happen from here. All the flaws in the work can be forgiven as simply their first attempt and all you can see is where this person might one day go. Sometimes they are Orson Welles and Citizen Kane and this is as good as it ever gets. Or they could be Chabon, who has since won a Pulitzer Prize for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay, not to mention other great books like Wonder Boys and The Yiddish Policeman's Union.

I love that first work. That feeling of discovery when you finish and think to yourself, "this person is going to be great." There's no career long disappointment yet (I'm looking at you, Quentin Tarantino and the Stone Roses). When someone is still finding their voice and is still unashamed to blatantly rip off The Great Gatsby, a book that should be ripped off more often. Because I'm sick of people ripping off The Catcher In the Rye, a book which really wasn't that good in the first place. Just for fun, read Jonathan Yardley's epic takedown of Salinger. Though it is not the most overrated book ever, as that is an honor reserved for On the Road.

It was written in one sitting? Really? It shows.