I have to tell you that as a reader, I have limited stamina for this kind of thing unless it's done really well, meaning the novelist remembers to entertain the reader as much as they're entertaining themselves. This is also one of those novels that features lists and footnotes. Indeed, he tells us as much in a prefatory author's note that warns tongue-in-cheek that he's taken liberties with the truth with due abandon. Given that the unnamed narrator here is also a novelist and that this marathon deathbed scene takes place in Oakland, Calif., we readers are meant to understand that Chabon is tossing together autobiographical truth and the lies of fiction.

Michael Chabon has said that 'Moonglow' was inspired by a week-long visit he paid to his own dying grandfather in Oakland, Calif. It's as though the unnamed grandfather here is like Scheherazade, holding off death through an extended bout of yakking. His latest novel, 'Moonglow,' may be structured around the sentimental situation of a dying grandfather telling the secrets of his life to his grandson, but these stories, dozens of them chopped and scrambled, are bawdy and moving, violent and very funny. But Michael Chabon, for all his expansive storytelling gifts, is no Victorian. Dickens' Little Nell, Cathy in 'Wuthering Heights,' Helen Burns in 'Jane Eyre' - all of them went a-gabbing (ph) into their good nights. The morbid Victorians in particular loved these set pieces. Literature provides no greater opportunity for melodrama, windy speeches and schmaltz than the moment when a character who's fading away fast decides to use precious last breaths to talk. MAUREEN CORRIGAN, BYLINE: The deathbed scene. Chabon's other novels include 'The Mysteries Of Pittsburgh,' 'Wonder Boys' and 'The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier And Clay.' It's called 'Moonglow,' and it's loosely based on his grandfather's life.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan has a review of the new novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon.

Moonglow chabon review