![]() In the meantime, he spends more and more time with Rosa, appearing as a magician at the bar mitzvahs of the children of Rosa's father's acquaintances, even though he sometimes feels guilty for distracting himself from fighting for his family. Joe and Sammy are slow to realize that they are being exploited, as they have private concerns: Joe is trying to help his family escape from Prague and has fallen in love with the bohemian Rosa Saks, who has her own artistic aspirations, while Sammy works to find his sexual identity and seeks to progress in his professional and literary career.įor many months after coming to New York, Joe's drive to help his family shows through in his work, which remains violently anti-Nazi despite his employer's concerns. The Escapist becomes tremendously popular, but like the talent behind Superman, the writers and artists of the comic get a minimal share of their publisher's revenue. The magazine features Sammy and Joe's character, the Escapist, an anti-fascist superhero who combines traits of (among others) Houdini, Captain America, Batman, the Phantom, and the Scarlet Pimpernel. The pair is at once passionate about their creation, earnestly optimistic about making money, and always nervous about the opinion of their employers. Under the name "Sam Clay", Sammy starts writing adventure stories with Joe illustrating them, and the two recruit several other Brooklyn teenagers to produce Amazing Midget Radio Comics (named to promote one of the company's novelty items). Sheldon Anapol, owner of Empire, motivated to share in the recent cultural and financial success of Superman, attempts to break into the comic-book business on the creative backs of Joe and Sammy. When Sammy discovers Joe's artistic talent, he gets Joe a job as an illustrator for a novelty products company, Empire Novelty. Sammy is the son of the Mighty Molecule, a strongman on the vaudeville circuit. ![]() Beyond having a shared interest in drawing, the duo share several connections to Jewish stage magician Harry Houdini: Josef (like comics legend Jim Steranko) studied magic and escapology in Prague, which aided him in his departure from Europe. As the novel develops, both Joe and Sammy find their creative niches, one entrepreneurial, the other artistic. ![]() Joe leaves behind the rest of his family, including his younger brother Thomas. Joe makes it to New York City by way of Japan and San Francisco. With the help of his mentor, Kornblum, Joe escapes Nazi-occupied Prague for Lithuania by hiding in a coffin he shares with the Golem of Prague. The novel begins in 1939 with the arrival by Greyhound bus of 19-year-old Josef "Joe" Kavalier as a refugee in New York City, where he comes to live with his 17-year-old cousin, Sammy Klayman, in Brooklyn. Vaughan and illustrated by Jason Shawn Alexander and Steve Rolston. Dark Horse Comics also published a comics-format "sequel" to the novel: The Escapists, written by Brian K. From 2004 to 2006, Dark Horse Comics published two series of Escapist comic books based on the superhero stories described in the novel, some of which were written by Chabon. In 2004, a coda to the novel was published separately under the title "A Postscript", in Zap! Pow! Bam! The Superhero: The Golden Age of Comic Books, 1938–1950. The novel's publication was followed by several companion projects, including two short stories published by Chabon that consist of material apparently written for the novel but not included: "The Return of the Amazing Cavalieri" in McSweeney's Quarterly Concern (2001), and "Breakfast in the Wreck" in The Virginia Quarterly Review (2004). In 2006, Bret Easton Ellis declared the novel "one of the three great books of my generation," and in 2007, The New York Review of Books called the novel Chabon's magnum opus. Kavalier & Clay was published to "nearly unanimous praise" and became a New York Times Best Seller, receiving nominations for the 2000 National Book Critics Circle Award and PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. In the novel, Kavalier and Clay become major figures in the comics industry from its nascency into its Golden Age. The novel follows the lives of two Jewish cousins, Czech artist Joe Kavalier and Brooklyn-born writer Sammy Clay, before, during, and after World War II. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is a 2000 novel by American author Michael Chabon that won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2001. ![]()
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