num_pages: 966
description: Joe Kavalier, a young artist and magician, escapes pre-World War II Czechoslovakia, making his way to the home of Sam Clay, his Brooklyn cousin. Sam dreams of making it big in the emerging comic-book trade and sees Joe as the person to help him. As the cousins gain success with their masked superhero, the Escapist, Joe banks his earnings to bring his family from Prague and falls in love with Rosa Saks, daughter of an art dealer. But when the ship carrying his brother to America is torpedoed, Joe joins the navy and is posted to Antarctica. Half-insane, he returns to a wandering life that leads back to Rosa and now husband Sam in 1953. What results is a novel of love and loss, sorrow and wonder, and the ability of art to transcend the "harsh physics" of this world and gives us a magical glimpse of "the mysterious spirit world beyond.
language: English
title: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
titlecomplete: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
characters: Sam Clay, Joe Kavalier, Rosa Saks
genres: New York, Historical, Jewish, Novels, Comics, Historical Fiction, Literature, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Fiction
ratings_count: 200055
places: Prague (Praha), Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York, New York City, New York, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, New York (State), Czechoslovakia, The United States of America
awards: awardedAt: 978336000000
name: Pulitzer Prize
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 978336000000
name: PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, awardedAt: 978336000000
name: Gaylactic Spectrum Award
category: Best Novel, awardedAt: 946713600000
name: California Book Award
category: Fiction (Gold), awardedAt: 946713600000
name: Los Angeles Times Book Prize
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 946713600000
name: New York City Book Award
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 946713600000
name: National Book Critics Circle Award
category: Fiction
publisher: RB