Life & Wisdom Quote by Michael Chabon

Chabon drops a seemingly blunt casting note, but the bluntness is the point: he’s arguing that narrative hierarchy is never neutral, it’s chosen. “Joe is the hero and Sammy is the sidekick” isn’t just a description of plot mechanics; it’s a declaration of authorial allegiance. By adding “That’s how I feel about it,” he turns what could be framed as an objective reading into a subjective stake in the ground, as if he’s preempting the inevitable debate about who “really” drives the story.

The subtext is about visibility and credit, a recurring Chabon obsession, especially in stories shaped by collaboration, commerce, and the mythology of American creation. Hero and sidekick are comic-book roles, not moral categories, and Chabon knows how loaded they are: the hero gets the close-up, the legend, the clean arc; the sidekick gets the labor, the jokes, the emotional scaffolding. This line insists on a pecking order while also revealing its fragility. If you have to assert it, the text is already haunted by the possibility that the “sidekick” might be the engine.

Context matters because Chabon writes in the long shadow of cultural industries that reward singular genius and erase the supporting hand. The quote reads like an author choosing which character gets to wear the cape, while quietly acknowledging that capes are manufactured narratives, too.