Wonder Boys

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**Title** **Wonder Boys**

Author	Michael Chabon
Country	United States
Language	English
Publisher	Villard Books
Released	March 14, 1995
Media type	Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages	368 pp
ISBN	ISBN 0679415882

For the film adaptation see Wonder Boys (film). For other uses see Wonder boy.

Wonder Boys is a 1995 novel by Michael Chabon. It was adapted into a critically acclaimed motion picture in 2000.

[edit] Plot summary

Pittsburgh professor and author Grady Tripp is working on an unwieldy 2,611 page manuscript that is meant to be the follow-up to his successful, award winning novel that was published seven years ago. On the eve of a college-sponsored writers and publishers weekend called WordFest, two monumental things happen to Tripp: his wife walks out on him, and he learns that his mistress, who is also the chancellor of the college, Sara Gaskell, is pregnant with his child. To top it all off, Tripp finds himself involved in a bizarre crime involving one of his students, an alienated young writer named James Leer. During a party, Leer shoots and kills the chancellor's dog and steals her husband's prized Marilyn Monroe collectible: the jacket worn by the starlet on her wedding day to Joe DiMaggio.

[edit] Inspiration

The novel grew from Chabon's concerns with completing an unrealized novel, Fountain City, about the construction of a perfect baseball park in Florida. He decided to write a story about, in part, an author who couldn't finish his own work. The main character of Grady Tripp is admittedly based on University of Pittsburgh professor, Chuck Kinder, who taught the undergraduate Chabon in the early 80s. Kinder's great opus, a novel inspired by his friendship with author Raymond Carver, was reportedly more than 3000 pages long at one point. It was finally published in a very slimmed down version in 2001 as Honeymooners: A Cautionary Tale.