Chabon won a Pulitzer for this work, centered, essentially, on escape. Joe Kavalier and Sam Clay, cousins and work partners, create the hugely popular "Escapist" comic book in 1930s NYC, and their stories continue, though not always together, through Surrealism, Antarctica and suburbia into the 1950s. Kavalier is constantly trying to come to terms with his past life in Nazi-occupied Prague and the family he left behind, while Clay just wants to make it in the comic book business and leave his mark somewhere.
It was one of those books that you hate to finish, knowing the next book will pale in comparison. Chabon is descriptive with his characters, but still lets the reader's imagination run a bit wild, especially with his chapters of comic book narration. Interspersed throughout the novel are narratives of The Escapist and his entourage, lending The Amazing Adventures a tinge of the fantastic. The book contains tragedy, romance, lives unfulfilled, adventure, and magic; what's not to love?
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