Admirals by Michael Chabon, 1987
The magic trick:
A child painfully aware of the subtext, while the father remains too self-absorbed to notice
Very early Michael Chabon. It’s maybe not the most original story ever written – planted firmly in the “a difficult childhood remembered’ genre. But it’s very good at what it’s doing. In fact, it may be my favorite of his stories that I’ve read.
A father is taking his two sons for lunch in Annapolis, Maryland, with his girlfriend. There is a lot of stuff happening underneath the surface – Nathan, the older brother, being trotted out as a kind of sideshow to impress the girlfriend; their mother’s boyfriend showing up at the restaurant with a different woman, etc. And crucially, it’s Nathan who is painfully aware of all of it, while his father – who should be the adult in the situation – is too self-absorbed to notice.
And that’s quite a trick on Chabon’s part.
The selection:
Since his parents’ divorce, a year and a half ago, Nathan had become interested in rock and roll, but aside from songs by the Beatles, which he knew fairly well, and a few by the Rolling Stones, he wasn’t much good at this topic. For a moment, running the name of random bands and singers through his mind, Nathan panicked, and his knees began to ache from the pressure he was exerting against his father’s seat, until it occurred to him that this was a new kind of quiz. This time his father didn’t know the correct answer any more than he did. He could give any name at all.
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