SOURCE: “No Potions in the Lab,” in Times Literary Supplement, March 5, 1999, p. 23.

In the following review, Greif offers a mixed assessment of Werewolves in Their Youth, stating that the collection “leaves the reader poised between elation and disappointment.”

Men wish they were monsters or criminals in the New America. They aspire to be werewolves, child molesters, rapists and thieves. Fathers dream their sons are monster births. Sons hope their fathers are mad scientists. Couples try to anesthetize themselves to love, trading partners or having sex for medical purposes. None of it works. The American male finds himself bound by a peaceable civilization and unforeseen moral scruples. His transgressions are less dramatic than he thinks.

This frustration, springing from a gap between inner drama and dull reality, touches each of Michael Chabon's characters in his ragtag new collection of stories, Werewolves in Their Youth. All any character wants to...