SOURCE: Review of Werewolves in Their Youth, by Michael Chabon. Kirkus Reviews (1 November 1998): 1549.

In the following review of Werewolves in Their Youth, the critic derides the volume for its unoriginal and uninteresting stories.

[Werewolves in Their Youth is a] mixed second collection of nine stories by novelist Chabon (A Model World, 1991; Wonder Boys, 1995, etc.), mostly set in the Pacific Northwest.

Domestic life has been the dominant subject of literary stories for many years, and the variations on it seem to be pretty well played out by now. Most of the characters in Chabon's tales are afflicted family men and women trying without apparent success to repair their failing relations with spouses or children. “Son of the Wolfman,” for example, describes the stress placed upon an already-teetering marriage when the childless wife becomes pregnant as a result of rape and decides to keep the baby. “The Harris Fetko Story...