Michael Chabon's newest book is Pops: Fatherhood in Pieces.From his Guardian interview with Alex Preston:
If Manhood for Amateurs was about taking on responsibility, Pops feels like it’s about letting go as your kids grow up.--Marshal Zeringue
Eventually, one of the things you come up against as a parent is the limitation of your importance in your kids’ life. They go off and forge relationships and make families by choice, in one way or another. You recede and dwindle in importance. If you are parenting properly, you’re parenting yourself out of a job.
In the introduction to Pops, you recall a long-ago conversation with an older author who told you that you had to choose between being a great novelist or a father.
I realised I wasn’t interested in the question of balancing one’s art and one’s life as a parent. I’m not saying it isn’t a problem, but I was trying to consider a different question – what difference does it make in the end, either way? Either your books will be forgotten or even if you are remembered in 100 years, you...[read on]