The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (with bonus content): A Novel

By Michael Chabon

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

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Jun 12, 2012
• ISBN: 9780812993677

Michael Chabon

Michael Chabon is the bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of seven novels – including The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and The Yiddish Policemen's Union – two collections of short stories, and one other work of non-fiction. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife and children.

Reviews for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (with bonus content)

[lukes_171461 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

There are some highly diverting pages early in this renowned piece, with various passages in which I took delight. However ... as the story wore on, I began to wear out. This story took a very labored route to its main point, the Hebrew legend of the Golem, and became weighed down like the Golem's clay legs. This book just seemed like such an effort to get through, and when I did slog my way fully through it, I grudged the effort. I could have spent my time more profitably.

[eye_gee-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I love Michael Chabon's writing and characters, but the subject matter of this novel doesn't really move me.

[ericakline · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Winner of the Bay Area Book Reviewers' Award, New York Library Book Award Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, PEN/Faulkner Award, Los Angeles Times Book AwardJoe Kavalier, a young Jewish artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdiniesque escape, has just smuggled himself out of Nazi-invaded Prague and landed in New York City.His Brooklyn cousin Sammy Clay is looking for a partner to create heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit America - the comic book.Drawing on their own fears and dreams, Kavalier and Clay create the Escapist, the Monitor, and Luna Moth, inspired by the beautiful Rosa Saks, who will become linked by powerful ties to both men.With exhilarating style and grace, Michael Chabon tells an unforgettable story about American romance and possibility.

[bravenewbks · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I am far from the first person to have loved this book, and I certainly won't be the last. The concept itself is pretty simple: an American boy and his Czech cousin, an escapee from Nazi annexation, develop a comic-book superhero in the 1940s. But this story has some of the most wide-ranging and well-developed side plots I've ever seen in a novel: Josef's extensive training in magic, a la Houdini, and his eventual escape inside a coffin holding an alleged golem; a cocktail party featuring Salvador Dali in a scuba-diving suit; a period of wartime service in Antarctica of all places, complete with frozen corpses and trusty sled dogs, that could probably have stood alone as a separate book.

Mostly, though, I'm impressed by Chabon's style of writing; his words make impressive necklaces as he strings them together. For example, "they arranged him with the care of florists in front of a glass of bourbon and ice..." Maybe it's the flower-arranging I've been doing on the side lately, but this created such a distinctive picture for such a short phrase devoid of adjectives. But I can see them carefully arranging him on a barstool, adjusting his posture when he leans a little to one side, and it evokes an impression of tenderness and love between the characters without ever putting it into words. The next time I have a bad day, I think all I want is for someone to arrange me with the care of florists in front of an alcoholic beverage.

Chabon's phrasing is impeccable, even when his powers of prediction are not:Poor Judy Dark! Poor little librarians of the world, those girls, secretly lovely, their looks marred forever by the cruelty of a pair of big black eyeglasses. Clearly, Michael Chabon did not anticipate hipsters.

One more example of beautiful writing, though you should not need any further encouragement to pick up this book. This is a description of a child's drawing:
Although the man's parachute was far beyond his reach, the man was smiling, and pouring a cup of tea from an elaborate plummeting tea service, as if oblivious of his predicament, or as if he thought he had all the time in the world before he would hit the ground.
I want to name something Elaborate Plummeting Tea Service. I really do. It's probably too unwieldy for my entirely fictitious punk rock band, though.

[theportports · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I really liked this novel. It's sort of quiet, and sad, and ends with tentative hope.Sam and Joe are both interesting characters who go through signficant changes as life knocks them around a bit. I've been mulling over who in this duo is the hero and who is the sidekick (since the concept of sidekicks is important in the novel), and I can't quite decide. I think Joe and Sam trade off in this regard; they father each other, and they look up to each other. It's an interesting dynamic.I expected a novel that was bigger, brighter, more WOW! and THWACK! and SWOOSH! This isn't a comic book, though. This is about the minds behind the comics, the people who aspire to touch readers with art and story.At the end, it felt like the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay may just be beginning.

[glade1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is an excellent book! Joe Kavalier has made his way to the U.S. via a daring escape and hopes to bring the rest of his family as soon as he earns the money. His cousin Sam Clay, a New Yorker born and raised, is always looking for a way to make it big. The two together strike upon The Escapist, a comic book character who can fight the fights Joe wants to fight and can earn both men money. Through the war years and into the fifties, the lives of these two men are entangled in business and personal ways. Ultimately, this is a story of family and making the best of what you have. Every event it drawn beautifully, every character comes to life in Chabon's hands. The story has hope and humor and fear and heartache aplenty. Chabon is a new author to me but I hope to read more of his work - this example is wonderful!

[samfsmith_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Attempted to read this way back in 2006 and just couldn't get into it. But I found it again while going through my library and decided to give it another try and was surprised by it this time. I guess I just had to be in the right mood. It is surprisingly good, once it gets going, telling the story of two Jewish cousins (Kavalier and Clay) who make it big (sort of) in the comic book business. Loosely inspired by the life of Will Eisner, there are a lot of plot details that make this an excellent read.

[jusneuce · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Michael Chabon's masterpiece

[carltonc_5 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A sweeping romantic tale of the comic book and the lives of two of their creators as imagined by Chabon. It is a fantastic romp of a story with joyful narrative drive, bringing to life a lost age of New York and European immigrant culture.For me, the story was in three parts, the initial story of Joe Kavalier coming from Prague to America to meet up with his cousin Sammy Clay to form the Kavalier & Clay partnership who create "The Escapist"; Joe Kavalier's time in Antarctica during WWII; and Joe's return from hiding in 1954 to be reunited with Sammy Clay, for a short time.The first and third parts worked well, but Antarctica, although I understood the necessity for the narrative, was not as engaging. Wonderful!

[joeydag · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

So close to the real lives of the creators of "Superman" it makes you wonder where the fiction starts and reality ends.

[beabatllori · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a pretty cool reading experience, if only because it's been the first book in a while that I've read properly, respecting the pace and the flow of the story instead of reading it all in 10-minute periods. So I'm rather happy about that.
The book itself is great too, though I liked the second half (which is less about comic books and more about the characters themselves) more than I did the first one. That's odd, because I'm a comic book fan myself; but the second half felt tighter and more focused. I particularly loved the entire North Pole section - it was harsh, unromantic, and anticlimactic in a way that made an excellent point of why revenge is ultimately useless and unsatisfactory.

[maryreinert · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I second everyone of those great reviews. Wonderful characters - great plot and just overall good reading. I'm new to this author but will certainly explore more.

[davida.chazan · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What a lovely ride. Fascinating from start to finish, even if you don't read comic books!

[erinclark_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Probably one of the best books I have ever read. Fantastic!

[kirstiecat · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

By far one of the best books I've read. This one is really one to immerse yourself in as it's another one of epic proportions that follows the lives of two comic book artists, one of them who has to escape Prague through a golem's coffin to get to Brooklyn and out of harm from Hitler's growing power. It has elements of great despair as well as immense happiness and really great stories between its pages. Michael Chabon does a thorough job of not only developing the characters well but continuing a story in which we grow with those who experience the extremes of life.

[melissarochelle_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a great story...it's obvious how much research went into the history of comic books, WWII, magic, escape artists, etc. However, all of that made the book a little overwhelming. I felt like I needed to go do my own research just to keep up! I understand why it won the Pulitzer though...it really is an amazing book...just not my style.

Bottom line: The story about Joe, Sammy, and Rosa is fantastic...and if one enjoys or knows about the above subjects, then this is the book to read! I know very little about comic books and magic so I felt like I was missing out.

[periwinklejane_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There's that collection I keep mentioning, of books about early 20th century entertainment, and I love all of them. Water for Elephants, Niagara Falls All Over Again, Carter Beats the Devil, and TAAoK&C. They are all fantastic.

I thoroughly enjoyed this one, though of the whole bunch, Carter Beats the Devil is still my favorite. TAAoK&C is a bit too long, and ... it sounds girly to say this ... but I wanted a little romance. CBtD had a great love story. WfE had a love story, too, but a bit tooo romancy for me.

Anyhoo, loved AAoK&C, could have done without Antarctica.

[lisa2013_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

The only reason I finished this book, by practially skimming the last 2/3 of it, was because I was reading it for my book club. Otherwise, I would have put it down within a couple of hundred pages at the most. I had anticipated really enjoying it; it had been on my to read list for a long time.

[sebastianhagelstein · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The way that the story takes place over many years, most of Joe and Sammy's lives, makes it an epic novel. I like the way it covers many events and a long period of time and how it fits personal conflicts into that time.

[dulcinea14-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A fun read that evokes comic books stories well with brightly colored descriptions, heroes, evil-doers, and phenomenal adventures, also mixed with real-world problems such as racism, homophobia, corporate greed, and personal failure. It was a fun book, but I think it needed a bit of editing because it felt too long at times. A great book will never *feel* too long.

Another complaint I had was that you need a dictionary to read this book because the author uses some crazy obscure vocabulary sometimes. And I'm talking words I've never seen in all my years of reading elite/classic literary works. Maybe it was intentional, to make the novel more colorful and alien to the reader, but there were times it felt forced.

[danajean_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Pulitzer Prize winning novel written by Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay was a nostalgic look into the heyday of comics and the devastating reality of WWII when superheroes were out there fighting the bad guys in the pages of funny books and on soils far from home. Love and loss weave a tale towards, if not a joyful ending, at least towards a hopeful one.Mr. Chabon hit about every hot button topic he could and showed that these are still themes that are debated and fought for and against to this day--homosexuality, war, abortion to name a few. The story had a very Mad Men feeling to the time and settings.I enjoyed the book, but I'm thinking people who have a real interest in WWII and a love and fondness for comic books will especially find a home in its pages.

[rampart_movie · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is one of the truly moving and emotional book that I have read in a while. Chabon is an amazing story teller. Well written and all the events are tied up perfectly. Strongly suggested for people who love Comics and the golden era of it and the subsequent persecution of it. This book made me google a lot of stuff. Learned a lot of things about Comic book culture in America, Jews, World War 2, Nazis their good and evil side. This book has tempted me to start reading comics and get immersed in it. A truly deserving Pulitzer prize winner. Must read!

[gracez-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Hmmm...

This book was very long, but it was easy to skim the wordy parts and, for the most part, I think this book took advantage of its length. The writing was not amazing, but good, and the story was fairly ambitious and completely absorbing. This was one of the few books I have read of late that I was completely invested in. I carried it around with me and spent time on it every day, purely because I wanted to.

Sometimes I was gripped by the extreme sadness of Joe's life. Other times I was frustrated by the vagueness of it. Parts of this book were so wonderfully detailed (the references to music and movies and artists, popular culture in general, etc.) and other parts were skimmed. I wanted to know more about Joe's family's background. Maybe I missed it or forgot, but were they Germans in Prague or were they Czech? And what happened to his grandfather? Some parts of the book needed to be tied up a little more or left a little looser.

I don't think I would go out of my way to recommend this book to anyone, but I wouldn't dissuade them, either.

However, you would think that if someone was going to fill a book with 600 pages of novel, they could put more than one female character in it (okay, two, if you count Sammy's mother. Who was pretty flat, so I don't). I'm going to go read a book about women now...

[ritaaw-1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Too much comic book history for me.

[veronicadarling · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Great, liked it a lot, and it had loads of great story asides that I liked! It was an amazing world to be in and very accurate!

[faganjc · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is one of those books that is about something without being at all preachy. Talk about "show, don't tell." It's first of all a great piece of storytelling. You spend most of the book delighted by the author's wittiness and the characters' peculiar/normal personalities, but underneath you know you're learning something, too. And there's a veritable buffet of themes one could learn from. Just take escapism: here's a list of the layers of complexity: The Escapist (fictional comic book character created by Kavalier & Clay)Cavalieri / The Escapist (alter ego of Josef Kavalier)- escape trick in Prague- jumping off Empire State building in quasi-suicide attemptHarry HoudiniLots of escape sequences and escape scenesSam, struggling with his sexual identity, 'escaping' with RosaJosef literally escaping Prague, then trying to escape his mental and emotional agony resulting from loss of familyJosef escaping death in AlaskaJosef escaping life by committing suicideescapism as a reason to read comic books / fiction...and much much moreI could definitely read this again in a few years.Also: Reminded me of The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood in how it tied together a fictional story / characters within the book to the 'real' story. I think I will start calling this "mousetrap" after Shakepeare's "play within a play" in Hamlet

[raven_4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In the winter of 1939, Josef Kavalier stumbles into his cousin Sammy's cramped bedroom in New York City, having escaped from Nazi-occupied Prague. They share a cigarette, and something begins: a friendship, and a partnership,that will last years. Between them they create the Escapist, a superhero who can escape from anyone and anything, who travels the world as an agent of the League of the Golden Key, helping others to escape from oppression and tyranny.The theme could be predictable and hamfisted: in America, Josef becomes Joe, and Sammy Klayman has already become Sam Clay; they escape from their Jewish backgrounds into the mainstream American middle classes just as Joe has already escaped Prague. But escape in itself isn't the only theme - it's also the failures that surround it, the way Joe and Sammy, in a way very reminscent of Angels in America, fail to be anything but their Jewish, troubled selves. Sammy can't escape from his own sexuality, Joe can't escape from anything he's left behind. And as a counterpoint to the escapes, there are the absences left behind: the absence of Sammy's father, Joe living with the daily absence of his family, and later, the absence of Joe. The language is lyrical and indulgently expansive, the moods perfectly evoked, but interestingly, there is nevertheless an appopriate comic-book aspect to the way the novel is written: events have a ka-pow! quality, especially in the earlier part of the novel. Joe bounces through a young lady's window, to screaming, Sammy kisses his his first love on the roof of a building with thunderstorms exploding around them, and later, Joe's adventures in the Antarctic cold, complete with grim madmen and sudden death have the overblown comic-book feel.What to say, in the end? I wasn't sure what to take away from this novel. It is too heavy and sad to read once, but there's something beautiful and altering in it, and something compelling about the way history and religion are threaded masterfully throughout. It stays with you, with all its weight

[ladycato · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the tale of two cousins, a cadre of superheroes, a war, and sacrifice. In 1939, young Joseph Kavalier employed his Houdini-inspired escape talents to smuggle himself out of Prague and into the United States. His cousin in Brooklyn, Sammy Clay, loves comic books and is awed by Joseph's natural artistic talents. Together the two young Jewish men toil to create the Escapist and Luna Moth, among others, while Joe dreams of saving his family from the devastation of Europe under Hitler. The beautiful Rosa Saks captures his heart, even as Sammy takes a very different path. Then on the eve of the Pearl Harbor attack, everything changes.My feelings on this are mixed. It's beautifully written and captures the spirit of the time period. Joe, Sammy, Rosa, and the rest of the wide cast are alive and vibrant. I can see why Chabon won the Pulitzer for this work. However, sometimes he went into exhaustive detail. In the middle of a scene it will dive into a three page history of the comic book, or a particular setting that never returned. Sometimes the perspective changes were dizzying as well, diving into characters we only see for a few pages. It felt as though the author had so much good material, he had to make sure all of it made it into the finished product. Yes, it was interesting stuff, but an info dump is still an info dump and it detracted from the flow of the story. It's worth reading, but not keeping.

[danielalgara · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Mindless dialogue.
Doesn't know what of his research to leave out.
Unimaginative narrative style.
Weight of content thinned by rambling.
Pulitzer awarded on account of gayness, not genius.
3/4 of the way in you can't possibly give a damn about the characters because you just want it to be over.

Listen, this is not a matter of opinion. I think Chabon is a fine writer and a very good short story teller, but this book has look-at-me narrator (which I realize is intentional) that puts you at a distance from understanding these guys in any real way. This is because Chabon has something to say instead of, in this book at least, a story to tell. One of the reasons for the low rating is for his deliberate decision to pick "Something to say" narrative over "human conflict" narrative which brings it terribly close to being trash (which IS an opinion).

Another thing that pisses me off is Chabon's tendency to apologize at the end of his books. This guy always has something to tell you when the story is over which makes me think he needs to either qualify his work or make you got what you were supposed to get out of it. It's not direct, but the impression is left that he won't leave you alone when it's over because, well, he has one more thing he wants you to understand. Mike, if you can't work it into the book, perhaps it's better left alone.

[thewasp_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Jewish Joe Kavalier escapes from Prague to his relatives in America leaving his family and younger brother behind to a bleak fate under Hitler,s regime. He is a talented artist, his American cousin SAm Clay,an imaginative story teller. Both have an interest in comics and recognise the growing popularity of the superhero. For Joe it is an outlet for his guilt and anger and an opportunity to rescue his young brother.Unfortunately both boys are tormented by their personal lives and after their initial success, their following years are filled with disappointment and tragedy.The book is well written and engaging but I found it quite sad.