The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

First published: 2000

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Historical realism

Time of plot: 1939–54

Locale: Prague; New York City and Long Island, New York; Antarctica

Principal Characters

• Samuel Klayman, comic-book writer and editor
• Josef Kavalier, Samuel’s cousin and creative partner
• Rosa Saks, Josef’s lover and Samuel’s wife
• Thomas Kavalier, Josef’s younger brother
• Bernard Kornblum, an escape artist and Josef’s teacher
• Sheldon Anapol, a publisher, Samuel and Josef’s employer
• George Deasey, Samuel and Josef’s editor
• Tracy Bacon, an actor and Samuel’s lover
• Tommy Klayman, Rosa and Josef’s son

The Story

Samuel Klayman is in his Brooklyn bedroom one night in 1939 when his mother introduces him to his cousin, Josef Kavalier, newly arrived from Prague, who will be staying with them, having escaped Europe and the Nazis. Samuel is initially suspicious of Josef but agrees to try to help him obtain employment at the company where he works, Empire Novelties.

The son of two Jewish doctors, Josef had become interested in the art of escape and studied with Bernard Kornblum, a famous escape artist. To safeguard him, Josef’s parents arranged to send him out of the country, but he was thrown off the train because of a change in regulations. In desperation, he begged Kornblum to help him flee. Kornblum had already contracted to arrange the shipment to Vilna of Rabbi Loew’s golem (a giant clay man said to come to life to protect Jews) in order to protect it, and he agreed to secrete Josef with the golem, allowing him to escape.

The morning after Josef’s arrival, Samuel awakes to find him drawing on a comic panel and is very impressed by his work. Josef reveals that he studied for two years at Prague’s Academy of Fine Arts. Samuel asks Josef to draw a portfolio to show his employer, Sheldon Anapol. The cousins meet with Anapol and propose that they create a new hero similar to Superman. Anapol agrees to entertain the idea if they can come up with a good sample comic. They leave to begin work, and Samuel reminisces about his father, the Mighty Molecule, a strongman on the vaudeville circuit who abandoned the family during Samuel’s childhood. He returned when Samuel was a teenager and promised to take him along on the circuit, but he left in the middle of the night and died soon afterward.

Samuel and Josef go to the apartment where several of Samuel’s artist friends live; they all begin creating characters for the sample comic. Samuel and Josef create the Escapist, whose real name is Tom Mayflower. Mayflower trains with a famous escape artist and takes over his role as helper of the innocent when the older man is killed. They present their work to Anapol, suggesting that he start a company called Empire Comics. Anapol agrees to finance the project, but only if his employee George Deasey is editor. He asks Josef to change the cover art for the first issue, which shows the Escapist punching Adolf Hitler. Josef refuses to compromise, feeling that the anti-Nazi artwork is an important element in his quest to bring attention to the plight of Jews in Europe. Anapol agrees to let them keep the cover, and Empire Comics is born.

The Escapist is a huge success, and Anapol becomes extremely wealthy, while Samuel and Josef earn good salaries. Now known as Joe Kavalier and Sammy Clay, the team creates many successful characters, with Samuel writing the stories and Josef providing the art. Josef is continually trying to get his family out of Prague. He learns that his father has died, prompting him to consider joining the Canadian air force. Eventually, he rejects this plan and redoubles his efforts to save his mother and brother.

Distraught, Josef breaks into the office of the Aryan-American League, run by Carl Ebling, an anti-Semite. Ebling catches him, but he escapes. Ebling later places a fake bomb in the Empire Comics offices, prompting an evacuation of the Empire State Building, though Josef refuses to leave. Deasey, a disillusioned Columbia University graduate who feels comics are beneath him but who nevertheless needs the money and admires Josef, warns the partners that Anapol is selling the rights to make an Escapist radio serial. He advises them to press Anapol for more money.

Josef begins a relationship with Rosa Saks, whom he meets at a party given by her father, Longman Harkoo. At Harkoo’s party, Josef saves Salvador Dali’s life and Samuel witnesses two men kissing romantically, which surprises and intrigues him. Rosa introduces Josef to Hermann Hoffman, who runs the Transatlantic Rescue Agency, dedicated to rescuing Jewish children from Europe. Josef enlists Hoffman’s help in rescuing his brother, Thomas. Josef and Samuel create a new female comic character named Luna Moth and attempt once again to get more money from Anapol. Deasey again intervenes to tell them that Anapol is being sued by Superman’s creators. They use this information to convince Anapol to give them a small profit-sharing deal in exchange for their (untruthful) testimony that the Escapist was not based on Superman.

Samuel spends his newfound wealth, but Josef saves his money to help Hoffman charter a ship to transport a group of Jewish children, including his brother, from Europe. They also meet the actors playing their characters in the radio serial; Tracy Bacon, who plays the Escapist, shows an interest in Samuel. Josef begins to appear at bar mitzvahs as a magician, the Amazing Cavalieri. During one performance, Carl Ebling attempts to kill him with a planted bomb, but Josef recognizes him and defuses the bomb.

Samuel is working as a civilian air spotter in the Empire State Building when Tracy Bacon arrives one night and kisses him; they eventually begin a love affair. The State Department refuses visas to the Jewish refugee children waiting to cross the Atlantic in the TRA ship, and Harkoo calls Eleanor Roosevelt to seek her intervention. With her help, the ship sets sail, but it is sunk by a German submarine; all aboard are killed. Josef learns of his brother’s death at a performance, and Rosa finds out as she is painting a mural in the room that was to be Thomas’s. Samuel is visiting the home of a wealthy gay friend of Tracy, which is raided by the police at the behest of the maid, Carl Ebling’s sister. Samuel is forced to provide sexual favors to an FBI agent and is traumatized by the experience. Josef leaves the next day to join the Navy, and Samuel learns that Rosa is pregnant with Josef’s child.

The narrative shifts to Antarctica, where Josef has been posted by the Navy as a radioman. One night, he is awakened and realizes all the men and dogs in the shelter with him are dead. Only he and John Shannenhouse, a pilot posted at the station, remain alive. A stove vent in the facility was faulty, and it caused the men to die of carbon monoxide poisoning. It is winter, and it is impossible for Josef and Shannenhouse to leave the station until the heavy ice surrounding it thaws in the spring.

Shannenhouse begins to work on the sea plane, and Josef spends his time listening obsessively to radio traffic. They eventually learn of a German geologist also marooned in Antarctica, and they plan to kill him. Shannenhouse completes the plane repairs, and they take off, in defiance of orders. Shannenhouse suffers a burst appendix and dies, causing the plane to crash. Josef survives the crash but is shot in the leg by the German. They scuffle, and Josef shoots and kills him. Though he thought this would satisfy his rage, in reality he is bereft.

The final section of the book finds Samuel and Rosa married and living in Long Island, raising Rosa and Josef’s son, Tommy. Samuel is employed by Pharaoh House comics, after unsuccessful attempts at several other professions. Bacon became an Army Air Corps pilot and was killed in the Pacific theater during the war. A letter appears in the newspaper stating that the Escapist will jump from the Empire State Building. Police question Samuel; he explains that Josef never returned from the Navy and they do not know his whereabouts. Eventually, they learn that Tommy wrote the letter in an attempt to draw out Josef, whom he has been secretly visiting. Josef had contacted him, having seen him in a magic shop and recognized him.

Josef appears and attempts to bungee jump off the building, but he falls on a ledge and is injured. Josef moves in with Samuel and Rosa; Samuel discovers the epic comic based on the golem that Josef has created during his absence. Samuel expresses a desire to publish the comic, and Josef eventually buys Empire Comics, which Anapol is selling after killing off the Escapist. Samuel is publically exposed as homosexual when he is called to testify before a congressional committee on the effects of comics on American youth. Tommy eventually discovers that Josef is his real father, and Samuel leaves for Los Angeles to live openly as a gay man, leaving Josef, Rosa, and Tommy together as a family.

Bibliography

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