Michael Chabon discusses 'Pops,' his collection of essays on fatherhood

First born was Sophie, who is 23. Then came Zeke, Ida-Rose and finally, 15-year-old Abe — two boys and two girls who share a family obsession with the cult British sci-fi television show “Doctor Who” and the confidence to develop idiosyncratic sartorial styles.

Being the father of those four young adults (and the husband to his wife, the writer Ayelet Waldman) has been the driving passion of Chabon’s life — even greater than his compulsion to put words onto a page, and that’s saying a lot.

“Pops: Fatherhood in Pieces” (Harper, 127 pp., 19.99) is Chabon's 15th book. That tally doesn’t include the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist’s other writing projects, such as his screenplays or the forthcoming Netflix television series on which he and Waldman are working.

Chabon, 55, has always been a stay-at-home dad; writing usually occurs between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m. after his offspring are asleep. If that exercise in split concentration has resulted in fewer books, or in novels of lesser quality, that’s a trade-off the author makes gladly.

Seven of the thoughtful and moving essays in this slender volume describe Chabon’s adventures in parenting, from accompanying his then 13-year-old son to Paris fashion week to his discomfort at reading “Huckleberry Finn” (which is riddled with the n-word) out loud to his children; the eponymous eighth chronicles Chabon’s trip to Oregon to visit his ailing doctor father, with whom he has an amicable if distant relationship.

The novelist recently chatted over the phone about the book; the conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

What rules do you have for writing personal essays about your children?

The general procedure when writing nonfiction is to check first and make sure it’s OK before you publish anything.

After I wrote “Little Man,” the essay about taking Abe to Fashion Week, I showed it to him before I sent it in. I told him: “You have total editorial control over this. You have approval over the final cut. If anything is in here that makes you uncomfortable, I will try to find a way to write it that you are comfortable with.”

All he had for me was fact-checking things. For instance, the version I showed him had the wrong brand of sneakers. He was very nitpicky about those details. But other than that, he was OK with what I wrote.

My overall sense of these essays is that they’re simultaneously revealing and circumspect. There are places you deliberately don’t go. Do you ever worry that you’re pulling your punches?

Definitely. It’s a fine line that you’re walking, and it’s always a challenge. I navigate it by trying to be as hard on myself as I am on other people.

It’s clear from your essays that being a father is as much an adventure for you as writing.

There’s a surprising amount of opportunity to bring the same amount of art and craft and thoughtfulness to the activities of being a father as there is to writing. There are ways to find pleasure in being a parent that are more than just the obvious things — the loving and being loved and the milestones like watching them take their first step.

There are possibilities for discovering satisfaction that I didn’t anticipate when I was a new father. You can find a sense of accomplishment from having three kids all come downstairs at the same time, all wanting something different for breakfast before they go to school. You can look at that situation as, “Oh my God, I wish they would all just leave,” or as, “First I’m going to get out the eggs out, and then I’m going to get out the butter,” and turn it into a practice that you enjoy and get better at over time.

How has your view of being a father changed as your kids have gotten older?

Right now, we’re on our fourth 15-year-old. I had to disabuse myself of the notion that anything I learned from raising my older children will be at all applicable to the younger ones. My wife and I used to say, “We’re getting better at this. We seem to have gotten the hang of it. We’ve learned these lessons that we can carry them forward.”

In fact, trying to do that can be harmful. Sometimes, you have to unlearn things. Out of simple fairness, you have to try to summon as much energy and imagination and curiosity for each new child as you did for the ones that came before.