Just chapters into Michael Chabon's tightly contained Telegraph Avenue —a novel so engaging, fun, and, to us locals, coolly familiar — the Berkeley author throws politically correct caution to the wind with a delightful portrayal of President Barack Obama, back in 2004. Chabon dresses down the then-senator with a funky attitude, a deep love of black music, and way with the ladies, as he attends a fundraiser in the Berkeley Hills to rap positive with Gwen the midwife. Suddenly, admiring the stutter-step speech of this young black man, all seems hopeful again.
