Best Books of the Decade: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
2. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon, 2001
I’ve only met one person who doesn’t like Michael Chabon and you know, I’m pretty sure that dude is a serial killer so it makes sense. This is my favorite Chabon novel which is really like asking me to choose among every gummi candy in the world, I like them all! The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay reads like the focus of the novel, that is, like a comic book. It just has that pace. It’s the story of two Jewish cousins, one American, one Czech who has escaped from the Nazis, and together they combine their artistic talents to create The Escapist, a superhero that has qualities of both boys. The Escapist becomes highly successful and their careers in comics take off. American involvement in WWII thickens the plot and we see our heroes struggle to deal with the circumstances of their lives. That’s a general description of the novel, concise and to the point. It hopefully makes you want to read the book. Yet all I want to do is describe to you how funny and human this book is, in ways that I, as a writer even, can’t put into words exactly. This feels like a story my grandmother would tell me after dinner, about our family and our history, it has that same intimate feeling of the oral tradition of storytelling. Depression era New York has never been more compelling, our heroes have never seemed so bright and engaging, and a story hasn’t been as warm and real as this is in a long time.
