| The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay Contributor(s): Chabon, Michael (Author) |
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ISBN: 0679450041 ISBN-13: 9780679450047 Publisher: Random House OUR PRICE: $27.00 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: September 2000 Annotation: With this brilliant novel, the bestselling author of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and Wonder Boys gives us an exhilarating triumph of language and invention, a stunning novel in which the tragicomic adventures of a couple of boy geniuses reveal much about what happened to America in the middle of the twentieth century. Like Phillip Roth's American Pastoral or Don DeLillo's Underworld, Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is a superb novel with epic sweep, spanning continents and eras, a masterwork by one of America's finest writers. It is New York City in 1939. Joe Kavalier, a young artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdini-esque escape, has just pulled off his greatest feat to date: smuggling himself out of Nazi-occupied Prague. He is 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 collaborator to create the heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit the American dreamscape: the comic book. Out of their fantasies, fears, and dreams, Joe and Sammy weave the legend of that unforgettable champion the Escapist. And inspired by the beautiful and elusive Rosa Saks, a woman who will be linked to both men by powerful ties of desire, love, and shame, they create the otherworldly mistress of the night, Luna Moth. As the shadow of Hitler falls across Europe and the world, the Golden Age of comic books has begun. The brilliant writing that has led critics to compare Michael Chabon to John Cheever and Vladimir Nabokov is everywhere apparent in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. Chabon writes "like a magical spider, effortlessly spinning out elaboratewebs of words that ensnare the reader," wrote Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times about Wonder Boys--and here he has created, in Joe Kavalier, a hero for the century. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Fiction | Historical - General - Fiction | Action & Adventure - Fiction | Humorous - General |
| Dewey: FIC |
| LCCN: 00029063 |
| Lexile Measure: 1170 |
| Physical Information: 1.39" H x 6.42" W x 9.64" (2.20 lbs) 656 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 1900-1949 - Chronological Period - 1930's - Cultural Region - Mid-Atlantic - Cultural Region - Northeast U.S. - Demographic Orientation - Urban - Geographic Orientation - New York - Locality - New York, N.Y. |
| Accelerated Reader Info |
| Quiz #: 49823 Reading Level: 7.8 Interest Level: Upper Grades Point Value: 38.0 |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: 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--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 |