I just finished reading Chabon’s vastly entertaining “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” and as I often do after finishing a novel, I looked up some background info on the author. Though an author’s sexuality is usually not my concern, I can’t help but be curious about Chabon. It seems at the very least that he’s bisexual and had said Clay’s professional relationship with Saks in the final chapters of the novel was in some part based on his real life relationship with his wife (writer Ayelet Waldman). Of course that doesn’t necessarily imply that their relationship is devoid of romantic love, as in the novel, it makes you wonder though. Also factoring in is that upon reading his work prior to their marriage, his wife had naturally assumed he was gay, which may or may not have been quoted out of context but still relevant.
BUT, they have kids which could mean a lot or absolutely nothing.
So I guess the question I’m asking myself is Chabon and Waldman’s marriage a sort of mutally agreed upon front? A front in the sense that the marriage was not based on romantic love but something else, a shared desire for children with a eugenic slant, perhaps.
OR maybe I’m just talking out of my ass and reading into this a bit more than I should.
I’ve only read Kavalier and Clay from Chabon so far and nothing from Waldman so thoughts and opinions from anyone more familiar with either of their work is very welcome.
I don’t know anything about Chabon’s personal life, but my first thought is that you shouldn’t assume everything that his characters do is based on his actual life. I’m trying to remember if that stuff is based on any of the real-life comic book artists who helped inspire the main characters.
Waldman famously wrote an essay about how much she’s into her husband, talking specifically about the great sex they have. So it doesn’t look like a front to me.
Not sure what is relevent about this anyway but I’ll play.
In one of Waldman’s non-fiction books she mentioned that her first date with Chabon was the first time she had not slept with someone on the first date in years (she gave a specific number).
How could we possibly know about the private workings of their marriage, except for what they’ve said about it?
Waldman has been quite public in her devotion to Chabon, to the extent of writing a column in which she said that if she had to choose between her children or her husband in a life-or-death situation, she would without hesitation choose her husband. She has also written about her wish that one of her sons be homosexual, so that she could spend the rest of her life going shopping with him.
All we really know is that Chabon seems to be bisexual and that Waldman seems to be batshit crazy.