SOURCE: “Chabon's Excellent Adventures,” in The Advocate, December 19, 2000, pp. 62–63.

In the following essay, Bahr discusses Chabon's incorporation of homosexual characters in his fiction and the author's misidentification as a homosexual writer upon the publication of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh.

Recently Michael Chabon was speaking to a New York Times reporter about his dazzling and delightful new novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, when he was asked “the question,” the one that Chabon has been asked repeatedly during the 11-plus years since publication of his first book, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, a sensitive and smart story of bisexual love. So, the reporter inquired, how did the happily heterosexual Chabon feel about being labeled by Newsweek as one of the most promising new gay writers? Chabon simply said, “I felt very lucky about all of that. It really opened up a new readership to me, and a very loyal...