The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (Unabridged)
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4.2 • 70 Ratings
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- $28.99
Publisher Description
Pulitzer Prize, Fiction, 2001
It's 1939, in New York City. Joe Kavalier, a young artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdiniesque escape, has just pulled off his greatest feat: smuggling himself out of Hitler's Prague. He's looking to make big money, fast, so that he can bring his family to freedom. His cousin, Brooklyn's own Sammy Clay, is looking for a partner in creating the heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit the American dreamscape: the comic book.
Inspired by their own fantasies, fears, and dreams, Kavalier and Clay create the Escapist, the Monitor, and the otherworldly Mistress of the Night, Luna Moth, inspired by the beautiful Rosa Saks, who will become linked by powerful ties to both men. The golden age of comic books has begun, even as the shadow of Hitler falls across Europe.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is a stunning novel of endless comic invention and unforgettable characters, written in the exhilarating prose that has led critics to compare Michael Chabon to Cheever and Nabokov. In Joe Kavalier, Chabon has created a hero for the century.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
This passionate, funny, Pulitzer Prize–winning slice of historical fiction pushed all our emotional buttons in the best way possible. In New York City in the days just before the United States entered into World War II, Jewish cousins Josef Kavalier and Samuel Klayman make it big in the comic book business by creating a Nazi-bashing superhero. Success has its pitfalls (like getting screwed by their publisher), but they’ve got bigger problems, with Joe desperate to rescue his family from Nazi-occupied Prague and Sammy struggling to keep his sexuality a secret. The story spins like a merry-go-round, providing as big a thrill ride as any Golden Age comic book. Michael Chabon effortlessly packs matters like Jewish identity, homophobia, wartime politics, and immigrant experiences into a novel that is, at heart, a masterful character study of two young men finding themselves while the world changes around them. David Colacci’s narration is as boisterous as Chabon’s exciting prose. You’re guaranteed never to look at Captain America in the same way again.
Customer Reviews
Loved it!
A delightful and magnificently structured work of art. So glad my wife had recommended it to me.
Unforgettable, in a good way
This is a truly unique and winding tale of family, friendship, love and loss but none of it cheesy and that, along with the amazing writing, is what I will always remember. Sad that it ended