This One Time I Made Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author Michael Chabon Fear For His Life

By Adam Greene

Michael Chabon is the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Wonderboys and Summerland. In addition to all that, he also thinks I want to murder him and wear his epidermis as a skin coat.



Just for the record, I don’t.

Our story begins six years ago. I had a print comic coming out called The Prince, with art by Sonny Andreotte and Mark Audette. My website linked to a free five-page preview on The Mad Review (A website I had written news comedy and movie reviews for, most of which to me are horribly unreadable now).



What does this have to do with Michael Chabon? Well, nothing, really. Not until I made my way to his website one afternoon. Now, I have to admit here that I have never read a Michael Chabon book, which even mentioning that in public always makes my friend Kumpf rend his soul patch in disbelief. Amy (my wife, for any new people here), has read a couple and doesn’t care for him. As for me, I watched the Wonderboys movie once and thought it blew donkey balls. So there you go.



Still, I have nothing against Michael Chabon and actually, one day, intend to read one of his books. Most likely Kavalier and Clay because it’s about comics. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve liked something that Amy didn’t. See: Star Trek. Stargate, Star Wars…pretty much anything with the word “Star” in the title, plus almost every comic book, movie and book that I own. I’m open to Michael Chabon. Really. The opportunity to read one of his books just hasn’t presented itself. ..and the fact that the Wonderboys movie was so damn shitty, after I heard that it was a pretty decent adaptation of the book, doesn’t exactly light a fire under my ass to order his complete bibliography from Amazon.



Back to my story. I went to Chabon’s website, having no idea who he was, because he posted a treatment for the first X-Men movie that was never used. Curious, I checked it out and, because I saw a contact link, dropped Michael an e-mail about it. I have no idea why I did that. I can count the times I’ve clicked a “contact” link on a website I’m visiting on one hand. And, judging by the number of hits I get here, versus the number of comments and e-mails I’ve received, you, my audience, don’t do it often either. Every now and then I get wacky, though, and send some stranger a message to let them know that, yes, I was on their site and read some stuff.

After e-mailing, I moved on to some message board where grown men and women were arguing about the existence of God in the Star Trek Universe (this is entirely true, internet. Shame on you.) Lost in web-based insanity, I completely forgot about e-mailing Michael Chabon.



That is, until he e-mailed me back. I realize that Michael Chabon was a lot less famous back then. His Pulitzer was still a few years away and, I’d suspect that the influx of comic readers checking out his X-Men pitch probably doubled his site readership that day. Still, I was surprised to see it. And even cooler than that, Michael had clicked the link in my e-mail which led him to my website and had checked out the online 5-page preview of The Prince. He gave me some compliments, talked about Sonny and Mark’s artwork, and seemed to like the idea as well.

Here is where it all went terribly wrong.

I e-mailed Michael back, thanked him and offered to send him a free copy of the comic. That’s cool, right? Who turns down a free comic? I would take one right now. Anyone out there who wants to send me a free comic, you go right ahead. I think the problem arose with how I phrased the next section of the e-mail.

I wrote: “All I need is an address.”

I know. In my defense, I meant the address of a literary agent or publicist. Maybe a P.O. Box or something. Whatever way Michael Chabon could safely get mail from strangers who don’t want to kill him.



He, evidently, took it as a suggestion that I wanted to know where he lived so I could make a meatloaf out of his internal organs. I promise that was not my intent. Shockingly, I never got a response from Mike. Probably because he was too busy installing extra locks on his front and back doors.

Instead of sending Michael Chabon my comic book, I forced him to hire highly trained security personnel with “shoot to kill” orders for anyone with a southern accent. So, uh sorry about that, man. My bad.



Michael, if for some reason you happen upon this website, I still have copies of The Prince and would love to send you one. Safely. Through whatever third party you feel most comfortable using. There’s nothing to be afraid of.




And for everyone else reading this, I’d actually love to hear from you. I am, in fact, inviting you, site visitor, to e-mail me and let me know that you read what I write. What a treat! E-mail me at adam@thefirstman.com or post a comment here. If you’d like your own signed copy of The Prince (signed by me and Mark), send me a $4 Paypal at that same e-mail address and it’s yours.

And, lastly, I’ve lost touch with Sonny Andreotte, the artist on The Prince, since then. No contact info whatsoever and I’d like to hear from him. So, Sonny (or anyone who may know him), if you come across the site drop me a line.