The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

One night in 1939, Josef Kavalier shuffles into his cousin Sam Clay’s cramped New York bedroom, his arduous and nerve-racking escape from Prague finally achieved. Little does he realise that this is the beginning of an extraordinary friendship and even more fruitful business partnership.

Together, they create a comic strip called The Escapist, its superhero a Nazi-busting saviour who liberates the oppressed around the world. The Escapist makes them their fortune and their name, but Joe can think of only on thing: How can he effect a real-life escape, and free his family from the tyranny of Hitler?

Michael Chabon’s exceptional new novel is a thrilling tightrope walk between high comedy and bitter tragedy, and confirms his position as one of the most inventive and daring of contemporary American writers. The story, which ranges from the heady heights of the American Dream to the desperation and grief of the Second World War, and which journeys from New York and Czechoslovakia to the Antarctic, will live on in the mind of the reader long after the final page is turned.