The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (with bonus content)
Read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (with bonus content) Online
Authors: Michael Chabon
Praise for
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Winner of
The Pulitzer Prize
The New York Society Library Book Award
The Bay Area Book Reviewers Award
Finalist for
The National Book Critics Circle Award
The PEN/Faulkner Award
The
Los Angeles Times
Book Prize
Named one of
Entertainment Weekly
’s
Best Books of the Decade
“The depth of Chabon’s thought, his sharp language, his inventiveness and his ambition make this a novel of towering achievement.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“I’m not sure what the exact definition of a ‘great American novel’ is, but I’m pretty sure that Michael Chabon’s sprawling, idiosyncratic, and wrenching new book is one.… [It] had me hooked from the first, wistful, epic-tinged sentence … to the final poignant line.”
—New York
“Towering, swash-buckling thrill of a book … the themes are masterfully explored, leaving the book’s sense of humor intact and characters so tightly developed they could walk off the page.”
—Newsweek
“A page-turner in the most expansive sense of the word: its gripping plot pushes readers forward.… Chabon is a reader’s writer, with sentences so cozy they’ll wrap you up and kiss you goodnight.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Mr. Chabon has fashioned a big, ripe, excitingly imaginative novel.… Especially impressive about
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
is its success in reaching for big settings (the top of the Empire State Building), big creative leaps (
Citizen Kane
plays a role here), and big historical relevance without strain.”
—The New York Times
“Some books you read for their plot, some for their style. When, like Chabon’s, both are exceptional, you’re in a rare place.”
—USA Today
“Lyrical … exquisitely patterned … composed with detailed scenes, and spotted with some rapturous passages.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“The kind of charged prose that leaps six hundred pages of fantasy and social history in a single bound … never before told with as much imagination, verve and affection.”
—Time
“[Chabon’s] magnum opus.”
—The New York Review of Books
“Richly imagined and unexpectedly moving,
Kavalier & Clay
shows a thoroughbred author writing at the peak of his talents.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Starts out as one of the most pleasurable novels of the past few years. It ends as one of the most moving.”
—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Michael Chabon’s new novel is the product of sparkling intelligence, undeniable talent, and consummate skill … a triumph both of style and storytelling.”
—South Florida
Sun-Sentinel
“[Chabon’s] biggest and most ambitious work so far. High-spirited, fantastic yet historically grounded, written in a charming, fluent, witty prose, it is a highly engaging and entertaining book.”
—Newsday
“Chabon’s highly propelled, magnificently furnished, linguistically unbuttoned and joyfully melancholy tale … is not merely hypnotically compelling but, even better, fall-on-the-floor-funny-but-with-a-lump-in-your-throat.”
—Memphis
Commercial Appeal
“Chabon takes center stage as a literary Houdini. It’s a crowd-wowing performance, one that pushes the author toward the top ranks of his generation of American writers.”
—The Denver Post
“Well researched and deeply felt, this rich, expansive and hugely satisfying novel will delight a wide range of readers.”
—Publishers Weekly
(starred review)
“
Kavalier & Clay
is full of the kind of exquisitely figurative language and gorgeous sentences for which Chabon is deservedly celebrated.”
—The Philadelphia Inquirer
“More than a novel about the American Dream … a grand novel about dreamers selling dreams, reminding us that part of the thrill of dreaming is not the dream itself, but the realization that we
can
dream.”
“This is a glad-hearted novel, rich in story and character and invention, and an argument for the virtues of escapism.”
—Minneapolis
Star Tribune
“A stroke of sheer conceptual genius … [a] huge enthralling third novel.”
—Kirkus Reviews
(starred review)
“
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
is an important, generous, beautifully written book, rich in wit and detail, overbrimming with marvels of narrative invention.”
—C
HARLES
F
RAZIER
ALSO BY MICHAEL CHABON
The Astonishing Secret of Awesome Man
Manhood for Amateurs
Maps and Legends
Gentlemen of the Road
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
The Final Solution
Summerland
Werewolves in Their Youth
Wonder Boys
A Model World and Other Stories
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
2012 Random House Trade Paperbacks Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Michael Chabon
Reading group guide copyright © 2012 by Random House, Inc.
Introduction to new material copyright © 2011 by Michael Chabon.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Random House Trade Paperbacks, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
R
ANDOM
H
OUSE
T
RADE
P
APERBACKS
and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
R
ANDOM
H
OUSE
R
EADER’S
C
IRCLE
& Design is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.
Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., in 2000.
“An Untold Tale of Kavalier & Clay: Breakfast in the Wreck” was first published in
The Virginia Quarterly Review
(Spring 2004). Copyright © 2004 by Michael Chabon. “The Return of the Amazing Cavalieri: From
Untold Tales of Kavalier & Clay
” was first published in
McSweeney’s
no. 7. Copyright © 2001 by Michael Chabon. “Introduction to Brian K. Vaughn’s
The Escapists
” was first published in
The Escapists
(Dark Horse Books, 2007). Copyright © 2007 by Michael Chabon. “A Postscript” was first published in
Zap! Pow! Bam! The Superhero: The Golden Age of Comic Books, 1938–1950
(The William Breman Jewish Heritage & Holocaust Museum, 2004) Copyright © 2004 by Michael Chabon.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Chabon, Michael.
The amazing adventures of Kavalier & Clay : a novel / Michael Chabon.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-8129-9367-7
1. Comic books, strips, etc.—Authorship—Fiction. 2. Heroes in mass media—Fiction. 3. Czech Americans—Fiction. 4. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. 5. Young men—Fiction. 6. Artists—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3553.H15 A82 2000
813′.54—dc21 00-029063
www.randomhousereaderscircle.com
Cover design and illustration: Will Staehle
v3.1
To my father
We have this history of impossible solutions
for insoluble problems
.
—W
ILL
E
ISNER
, in conversation
Wonderful escape!
—N
ATHANIEL
H
AWTHORNE
, “Wakefield.”
