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Book Review: The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (Chabon)

It's the classic tale - boy meets boy, boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, boy falls in love with boy, wackiness ensues, rich kid turned mobster gets chased by police. All taking place in Pittsburgh, of course. I was surprised by how little Pittsburgh played into the story - sure, I recognized street names and neighborhoods, but what did it matter where this was set? Maybe I was just bugged because I can't remember what factory could be the Cloud Factory they were talking about. The book itself was quite readable, although a little unfocused. It definitely felt like a first novel, although I did read it after an extremely complicated and deliberately crafted novel, so there may be an unfair standard I used for comparison. I thought the discussion of homosexuality in the narrator's thoughts (especially at the end) was too simplistic, but the characterization was well-done. I think the book would have been better off without the mafia subplot, which made the whole thing harder to relate to. Overall, though, you could do worse for a day's worth of airplane reading.