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    The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
    The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
    The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
    Audiobook (abridged)8 hours

    The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

    Written by Michael Chabon

    Narrated by David Colacci

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE

    The beloved, award-winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, a Michael Chabon masterwork, is the American epic of two boy geniuses named Joe Kavalier and Sammy Clay. Now with special bonus material by Michael Chabon.

    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.

    NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

    Finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and Los Angeles Times Book Prize

    Winner of the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award and the New York Society Library Book Award

    Named one of the 10 Best Books of the Decade by Entertainment Weekly

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateJan 3, 2005
    ISBN9781597371612
    Author

    Michael Chabon

    Michael Chabon is the bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of seven novels – including The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and The Yiddish Policemen's Union – two collections of short stories, and one other work of non-fiction. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife and children.

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    Reviews for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

    4.5/5

    292 ratings164 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This was scattered with stories, landscapes, ideas, insights, and phrases that I really enjoyed. The whole just didn't jibe."Forget about what you are escaping from. Reserve your anxiety for what you are escaping to."
    • 5/5
      Fantastic, exuberant, and lively, both in its style and in its topics --comic books, magicians, World War II, and Dali in a diving suit at a New York surrealist party. It's the first book I read from Michael Chabon, and I'll now make sure to read them all.
    • 5/5
      i enjoyed this quite a bit, but i may be the only person on the planet who thought wonder boys was a more compelling narrative. chabon is amazing, though, whatever he does.
    • 3/5
      Rich novel about two men in New York, during the WWII years and after, and the emergence of superheroes and the comic book world.
    • 5/5
      I was shocked with some of the developments of the characters but man isn't the story great.
    • 5/5
      Wow. This is the first book I've read in 2008, and I am willing to bet big $$ that it will be the best of the 100+ books I'll read this year.The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is one of those books that completely draws you into its world. In this case, it is the story of two cousins (Joe Kavalier and Sam Clay) who create, draw and script a superhero character in the golden days of early comic books. The story chronicles their lives and takes the reader from the Nazi invasion of Poland, to the top of the Empire State Building, to Antarctica....from the world of magic, to Surrealism, to comic books.This is a story you can get lost in. Which is fitting, since the main theme is escape...and escaping from the prisons you construct around yourself.A MUST READ.
    • 5/5
      This is a stunning achievement. The plot and diction are worthy of Dickens but the sensibility is entirely that of the 21st century. After two readings, this novel is firmly placed in my top five list (along with Tom Jones, Bleak House, The French Lieutenant's Woman and 100 Years of Solitude). Like much of Chabon's work it has a strong gay theme, so be warned. The kiss is a moment of sheer magic.
    • 5/5
      This truly is a great American novel in every sense of the phrase. Much like the adventures of Huck Finn, Chabon makes his characters so real that you can feel the full range of emotions that they do. He also offers a wonderful and mesmerizing glimpse into the first half of the 1900s - experiencing historical events with the same sense of wonderment and awe of the characters. I often struggled putting the book down.If you're a fan of comic books, this novel also offers great insight into the golden years. Chabon beautifully intertwines his characters and their story with the lives of the actual "greats" of the industry.
    • 4/5
      As good as everybody made it out to be; I started reading it as soon as my last exam finished and stayed up to 3am to finish it. It's a wonderful epic of a friendship, a passion for comics, a talent for escapism and love that never dies.
    • 5/5
      Wonderful, dense writing, efficient use of language. A captivating and fanciful story set in the thirties centering on two best friends obsessed with the idea of super-hero comics.
    • 5/5
      This was one of those books that was just a joy to read. Having been so involved in comic books on both the creative and retail sides for so long, I was enthralled by this story.
    • 5/5
      Michael Chabon's masterpiece
    • 4/5
      One of the few books I bought as a direct result of all-the-hype and still really enjoyed reading it. Really an excellent read.
    • 4/5
      I am always fascinated by the accomplishments of the Jewish people. I knew that they have achieved much in the fields of science, business, finance, the film world. As a boy I was a great fan of Marvel comic books. Through this work of fiction I learnt that here too, in the world of comics, Jewish creative genius has been the driving force. A great story.
    • 4/5
      Great, liked it a lot, and it had loads of great story asides that I liked! It was an amazing world to be in and very accurate!
    • 4/5
      A breathtaking story of two young Jewish boys who create a famous comic book hero, not unlike the story of Siegel and Shuster.
    • 5/5
      This fantastic book of Chabon is a historic tableau and the coming to age of story of two cousins in New York. Bu first and foremost it's a love letter to the comics and its American golden age. It's a must for everyone!
    • 5/5
      Been diggin on Michael Chabon since Mysteries of Pittsburgh. This magnum opus was a delight. One of my friends hated it for being "farfetched" but I think that's just the point. It's a realistic, literary comic book, but it is a comic book at heart.
    • 5/5
      A bit to get through in the beginning but well worth it - a fantastic story - I wish there was an actual comic of the characters though.
    • 4/5
      What a lovely ride. Fascinating from start to finish, even if you don't read comic books!
    • 5/5
      Incredible book with more depth than even Michael Chabon can squeeze into his own movie adaptation. If you've ever loved comic books or simply want a well-written fictional look at 1930s New York, this is a book worth your time to read.
    • 5/5
      An amazing book: tender, true, funny, profound.
    • 4/5
      With a endearing love of superhero comics Chabon deeply entwines a story of astounding (super)heroes and heartfelt personal dramas, of dramatic escapes and everyday torturous traps. It's part tale of deep friendships, a lecture in US comics history and the tragic tale of WWII. It’s has some big things to say (and explain) but has much fun along the way and lucky it grounds itself with rich and evocative settings and a grand cast of utterly human characters. So one minute we are dazzled by the manic dynamism of New York in the 1940s and next overcome by the cold, dark maddening isolation of the Antarctic. We meet and lose a lifetimes worth of people from the hard, cynical editor George Deasey to the glamorous, lonely radio actor of Tracy Bacon (love that name). It's ambitious wonderful, clever and heartfelt and if it wasn’t so damn long, with a slow start, an uneven pacing and the odd brazen info dump this would be a truly wonderful book. It’s easy to forgive these faults and let it take your breath away, you don’t need to be a fan or even like comics, superheroes, WWII stories or romance it‘s superbly its own delicious thing and I highly recommend the experience.
    • 4/5
      If I got to use decimal points, I'd probably put this at a 3.75 but I don't so it's a four. Chabon has a amazing ability to set a story in a world that no one else would think to. And his characters are always so well written.
    • 5/5
      Epic story set in the golden age of comics, brimming with pathos and imagination. Read it!
    • 4/5
      A copy of this book had been sitting around at work for a while now, so since it had been in my consciousness, I noticed when I saw a copy of it at my brother's house as well. I asked about it, and my brother highly recommended it - and plus it won the Pulitzer prize - so I thought I'd read it too!
      It's about two Jewish cousins who meet in New York in the lead-up to WWII, and start in the business of comic books together. Throughout the book, their comics and superhero characters reflect on and illuminate the young men's concerns and dreams - fighting against Nazis and other evils, being father figures, objects of desire, and/or totems of wish-fulfillment.
      It's well-done, well-researched, and gives insight into various aspects of life circa 1940's NYC, the Jewish Experience, and all that good literary-type stuff.
      It starts very light-heartedly, gets much more serious, and finally, I thought, ended rather abruptly - which was my only complaint with the book.
    • 5/5
      If you can only read one book out of this list, this is the one. It clearly demonstrates that Pulitzer Prizes aren't just little CrackerJack(tm) prizes handed out willy nilly. It is deeply touching, wonderfully written, and has characters you really really care about. Just a fantastic book all around.
    • 4/5
      I'm not really sure what to say about this one. I liked it. I can see maybe why it won the Pulitzer Prize. I really never have liked Pulitzer Prize winners much. Chabon's writing is engaging and stimulating and way over my head. The characters were enchanting and charming and slipped right through my fingers like a good magician. The historical side of the comic book industry was fascinating and alluring. And surely there must have been a point to including it that I somehow missed. The writing style was complex, swift, confusing at times, and quite witty. And I'm still not sure what was based on fact and what was pure drivel. I loved it, hated it, wanted to stop reading it, fell back in love with it, and am glad I read it -- and am relieved to be done!
    • 4/5
      I picked this up from the library after a friend mentioned in conversation that she had enjoyed it. I found I really liked Chabon's prose. He has a knack for metaphor that brings the characters and their emotions to life with the same vivid quality as the comic books that are so important to the story. As someone who enjoys reading a lot of fantasy, science fiction, what-have-you, I was struck by the theme of escapism in this novel. I also liked the thoughtful and interesting way Chabon weaves historical detail into the story, especially with regards to the comic book industry in the heyday of the superhero. I'd recommend this book to anyone and everyone who has ever entertained an escape fantasy of their own, even for a moment.
    • 4/5
      The title isn't a lie my friend. These adventures truly are (i)amazing(/i). Gather round, i'll explain. Two cousins, both jewish, one from Brooklyn, one from Prague. Both like to (b)draw and dream(/b). I don't want to give too much away, but this story is epic and moving and it deserved to win the pulitzer prize in fiction, and non fiction and also journalism. Because that's the kind of book this is. I'm laying it down for you to pick up. I don't want to give too much away. I ought to listen to the dirty 3 more, everytime i do I really enjoy it. This is my least bounded review yet. Every day i am so much freer.