Childhood is, or has been, or ought to be, the great original adventure, a tale of privation, courage, constant vigilance, danger, and sometimes calamity. For the most part the young adventurer sets forth equipped only with the fragmentary map — marked here there be tygers and mean kid with air rifle — that he or she has been able to construct out of a patchwork of personal misfortune, bedtime reading, and the accumulated local lore of the neighborhood children.
– This kind of insightful prose is why we love Michael Chabon; it’s also why he’s able to nail characters like Joe in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and James in Wonder Boys. [via Bookslut]