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At 45, Michael Chabon is officially an old man. No, he hasn’t stopped reading comics (he says siring kids is the best excuse for keeping hold of regressive pleasures), but he has sworn off marijuana and begun toting a man-purse, or “murse.” These are the sacrifices of manhood as detailed in his latest book, Manhood for Amateurs. It’s a loosely interlocking series of familiar essays in which Chabon mourns the loss of “wildernesses,” both literal and figurative, that once gave childhood its shape; skewers the overweening protectionism of modern parenting; exposes the first law of fatherhood (“Fake it!”); and waxes surprisingly, fiercely moral—his takedown of Henry Miller for the latter’s callow macho posturing is particularly brutal.
CHABON DISCUSSES AND SIGNS COPIES OF HIS WORK AT 7 P.M. AT LISNER AUDITORIUM, 730 21ST ST. NW. $7, OR 2 FREE TICKETS WITH PURCHASE OF A BOOK. (202) 994-6800.