Archy is introduced as “moonfaced, mountainous” and “moderately stoned” at the front desk of his record shop, while Gwen and Aviva, the “Berkeley Birth Partners”, are repeatedly dubbed “baby catchers” in the novel’s interminable slang.
But it is more like a confused soap opera, overcrowded with characters and suffering from the constant desire to prove itself au fait with its cool surroundings. The book aims to be “a Californian Middlemarch set to the funky beat of classic vinyl soul-jazz”. The friendship begins to crack along racial lines. “Brokeland Records”, Archy and Nat’s vinyl record shop is threatened by a business mogul (the fifth-richest black man in America) who plans to open a music megastore just down the road. Mr Chabon’s weaker, secondary theme concerns the arrival of big business in the Berkeley suburbs. A further complication is the gay interracial relationship between Archy and Nat’s adolescent sons.
#CURSE ARCHY PROFESSIONAL#
Archy’s main problem is his wayward father Luther Stallings, a faded star of the “blaxploitation” era, whereas his wife Gwen’s professional partnership with the white Aviva is tested by a racially aggravated legal case against their midwifery business. Two families, one black and one white, are at the centre of this story.
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