MixedThe StrangerIn the book’s disjointed, at times jarring narrative, Chabon gets to choose what sticks. But in real life, we aren’t so lucky ... in various settings, the book moves quicker, more efficiently, than Chabon’s earlier works. Every chapter reads like a self-contained episode that begs to be savored, not rushed. Grounded both in historical events and a universal search for purpose in one’s life, Chabon’s novel is a four-hundred page indulgence that invites us to seek meaning not in the destination but in the journey, even if that journey doesn’t seem to us to be particularly interesting.
