Robin Marx's Writing Repository

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on August 5, 2015.

Gentlemen of the Road

By Michael Chabon – Ballantine Books – October 30, 2007

Review by Robin Marx

Impishly nicknamed “Jews with Swords” by its author, Gentlemen of the Road is a historical adventure tale about a pair of rogues—a giant African soldier named Amram and a German physician/fencer named Zelikman—and their journey through the (largely unfamiliar to me and apparently scantly chronicled) city-states of Khazaria.

Pleasingly reminiscent of Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Amram and Zelikman are introduced in a very amusing fashion that immediately familiarizes the reader with the most salient aspects of their personalities. They overcome their baser instincts to grudgingly become involved in what looks like a simple escort mission, only to find their task rapidly balloon in importance, until they end up having an inadvertent and significant political impact on the region.

While this book is dedicated to Michael Moorcock, to me it felt more like a swashbuckling yarn in the tradition of Robert E. Howard or Harold Lamb. The narrative travels along at a brisk pace with no wasted verbiage, and characters are mostly rendered in broad, archetypal strokes. The episodic format (the novel was originally serialized in the New York Times Magazine) and monochrome illustrations by the excellent Gary Gianni (who also handled the Del Rey Conan and Solomon Kane books, etc.) also contributed greatly to the pulp adventure appeal.

My only complaint with the book is that there isn't more of it. I would love to read more of the “Gentlemen's” adventures, but with his “literary” pedigree Chabon is probably loath to be perceived as repeating himself. Indeed, parts of the included Afterword seem a bit like a defense of him writing the story in the first place, saying effectively “Yeah, I mostly write New Yorker-style slice-of-life stories, but adventure tales are also really great!” Personally, I'd rather see him continue to experiment with genre rather than write any more “Jewish writer has marital struggles” stories, but it remains to be seen when he'll release his next “fun” novel.

★★★★☆

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