The fictioneer

Let’s do a little literary exercise. Ready? OK. Go find a copy of Michael Chabon’s novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and open it to any random page. Now read any random sentence on that page. Good. Now, if you’re new to the book—maybe, what with all that Pulitzer brouhaha and Chabon-mania a few years back, you just never got to it, didn’t want to seem like a follower or whatever—the first thing you’re gonna think is probably, “OK, what the hell’s going on? Who’s this Escapist?” Next thing you’re gonna think is, “Then what happens?” At this point, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you to read the next sentence, or the one after that, because no doubt you already are, having let this old fish wrap fall to the floor in favor of far more compelling literature. Well, this concludes our exercise. But here’s your homework for the next one: This Monday at 8 p.m., catch the Berkeley-based author at Davis’ Mondavi Center for an evening of writerly shoptalk. Tickets cost $10 to $30. Call (530) 754-2787 or visit www.mondaviarts.org for more information.