I am stuck on this: "The rusty remains of vampire bite of a stapler". Its an odd line to get stuck in but it only goes to show how Chabon views perceives the world and translates it to fiction. Multiple stories set in a memoir where a story can become an exaggerated account of a real incident or a myth made up during dire circumstances can be told as a real anecdote. The tone, the voice, the perception varies between starkly cold to weirdly fantastical. An anecdotal reiteration can fall anywhere between this scale and the scale never stops at the same level. During the narration, there are lapsed timelines, missing timelines and misinterpreted timelines. Some information comes from secondary source that are dead about primary characters through their records while some information come during lucid moments and when a character is in the brink of being absorbed by the abyss of their own despair. 
 In the end, we are all bunch of stories - some true and some have a version of truth and some are just plain myths.