The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (Michael Chabon)

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay tells the story of Sammy Clay, an ambitious young Jewish New Yorker, and his cousin, Josef Kavalier, newly immigrated from Prague in a harrowing escape from the encroaching Germans in 1939. Soon after Josef arrives at Sammy’s apartment, the cousins discover their uncanny artistic compatibility. Joe is a masterly sketch artist, while Sammy’s head whirls with thrilling plots of heroic adventures. Together, they create a comic book superhero, and their comics become national bestsellers.

Despite a parasitic contract with their publisher, the guys pull in pretty good money. They find love, success, and joy, until – as must happen in all good stories – tragedy strikes. The story spins on how each young man escapes his individual crisis. Chabon takes them on their separate journeys, and ultimately reunites them, revealing how, while they were apart, each has been the inadvertent protector of the other.

Artwork inspired by The Amazing Adventures
of Kavalier & Clay (John Cassaday, cover art for
Michael Chabon Presents the
Amazing Adventures of the Escapist #4)

Besides the retro snapshot of New York Jewish culture in the 1930s-1950s, this book also stashes a trove of all the stuff that literature nerds love: foreshadowing, symbolism, suspense devices, character foils, vivid dialog, a brilliant denouement, an expertly spun theme, and tons of vocabulary words. If you’re like me, you’ll want to keep your dictionary app on the ready.

While the book recalls lots of old-timey things the unassailable culture shift has diminished, like superhero comic books, public smoking, and automats, Chabon keeps the vibe current by addressing issues like dysfunctional families, homophobia, and anti-Semitism, which never seem to go away.

Michael Chabon at the 2019 Comic-Con in
San Diego (photo by Gage Skidmore)

Even though The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay was written in 2000 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001, I hadn’t heard of it before this year. I don’t know why. It should be ubiquitous. Buy this book, and brace yourself. It is legitimately an amazing adventure.

Check it out on Amazon!