Telegraph Avenue

As the summer of 2004 draws to a close, Archy Stallings and Nat Jaffe are hanging in there, co-regents of Brokeland Records. Their wives, Gwen and Aviva, are the Berkeley Birth Partners, a pair of semi-legendary midwives. When former star quarterback Gibson Goode announces plans to dump his latest Dogpile megastore on Telegraph Avenue, Nat and Archy fear the worst for their vulnerable little enterprise. As behind Goode's proposal lurks a nefarious scheme. While their husbands struggle to mount a defence, Aviva and Gwen find themselves caught up in a professional battle that tests the limits of their friendship. And into their already tangled lives comes Titus Joyner, the teenage son Archy has never acknowledged.

An intimate epic set to the laid-back beat of classic vinyl soul-jazz and pulsing with a virtuosic, pyrotechnical style all of its own, Telegraph Avenue is Michael Chabon's most dazzling book yet.