MOONGLOW by Michael Chabon

I wish I knew which parts of this novel were fact and which were fiction.  Chabon tells his grandfather’s life story as a novel, and if it were all true, his grandfather led quite a life, as did the grandmother, who hosted a late night horror TV show, made up similarly to Elvira.  First of all, Chabon’s grandfather is not a blood relative, as his grandfather was not Chabon’s mother’s biological father.  Chabon’s grandmother escaped from France during WWII along with her young daughter—Chabon’s mother.  She then married the man we come to know as Chabon’s grandfather.  She probably suffered some sort of PTSD and probably had a mental illness, as she spent quite a bit of time in a mental institution.  The grandfather served over a year in prison for assaulting his boss, and the timeframe for these two separations from society coincided, so that Chabon’s mother had to be farmed out to Uncle Ray—a pool shark and former rabbi.  The grandfather definitely lived a fascinating life, including two oddball quests—one to capture German rocket scientist Wernher Von Braun and one to capture a python.  I have to say that the backstory on Von Braun was disturbing and left me feeling conflicted about the space program in general.  A good book does that, though.  It makes the reader reevaluate beliefs by seeing things from a different perspective or, as in this case, by learning that one’s beliefs are not necessarily based on fact.  And, yes, you can glean some little-known facts from a work of fiction.