WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The epic, beloved novel of two boy geniuses dreaming up superheroes in New York’s Golden Age of comics, now with special bonus material by the author—soon to be a Showtime limited series
“It's absolutely gosh-wow, super-colossal—smart, funny, and a continual pleasure to read.”—The Washington Post Book World
Named one of the 10 Best Books of the Decade by Entertainment Weekly • Finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and Los Angeles Times Book Prize
A “towering, swash-buckling thrill of a book” (Newsweek), hailed as Chabon’s “magnum opus” (The New York Review of Books), The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is a triumph of originality, imagination, and storytelling, an exuberant, irresistible novel that begins in New York City in 1939.
A young escape artist and budding magician named Joe Kavalier arrives on the doorstep of his cousin, Sammy Clay. While the long shadow of Hitler falls across Europe, America is happily in thrall to the Golden Age of comic books, and in a distant corner of Brooklyn, Sammy is looking for a way to cash in on the craze. He finds the ideal partner in the aloof, artistically gifted Joe, and together they embark on an adventure that takes them deep into the heart of Manhattan, and the heart of old-fashioned American ambition. From the shared fears, dreams, and desires of two teenage boys, they spin comic book tales of the heroic, fascist-fighting Escapist and the beautiful, mysterious Luna Moth, otherworldly mistress of the night. Climbing from the streets of Brooklyn to the top of the Empire State Building, Joe and Sammy carve out lives, and careers, as vivid as cyan and magenta ink.
Spanning continents and eras, this superb book by one of America’s finest writers remains one of the defining novels of our modern American age.
Winner of the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award and the New York Society Library Book Award
This book came recommended from so many different people whose tastes I respect, that this existed in a separate TBR list than just my regular old TBR. This was in the MUST TBR list that only exists in my brain. I'm so glad I've finally had the opportunity to read it!
This book is like five books rolled into one. Firstly, it's the story of Joe Kavalier's amazing escape from Nazi Germany to America. This rolls into a tale of him meeting and immediately bonding with Sam Clay, his cousin. Sammy has ideas for comic books, and Joe is an artist. Together, they score a place in Chabon's somewhat altered version of the golden age of comics. Told partly as a sort of in-depth historical chronicle of the boys' lives in the comic book world, and partly as an emotional exploration of the way the need for escapism and, occasionally, plain old escape, can serve as a coping mechanism with life's more brutal twists and turns.
This books is a brick, and when I saw it's hefty 600 pages, I didn't know what to expect. What I gained was a journey through the adult life of two characters who felt real, were at once flawed and lovable. Believe me, you will want to bop these guys on the head sometimes, but you will also mourn with them.
Thank you to the amazing friends who recommended this book to me. It's the kind of book that takes up space in your heart for a long time.
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29 April, 2015:
Reviewed