Remember those daydreams of making your own comics and joining the greats?

I've never posted any endorsements for books on this blog (nor has anyone else from the Gang), which I think is kind of odd, considering how much we all seem to read. It's actually been a few years since I first picked up The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay when it came out in paperback. Intrigued by a novel about comic books which was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, no less, it seemed inevitable that I'd sprint through to the end of this book in no time. Alas, other distractions of life in the form of work always seemed to prevent me from finishing it, never getting past the first fifty pages. So a couple of weeks ago, having all sorts of free time now, I pulled Michael Chabon's book off my bookshelf for the fifth time and started over from the beginning. In short, this may be one of the most enjoyable books I've ever read.

Now that may be an odd statement, considering all my false starts in the past. I've never read any of Chabon's prior writing, but anyone who has will know he's pretty descriptive and knows how to lay down some illustrative words. It's not that his writing is boring--it's that, at times, I felt like a dictionary would have been handy to have around to fully grasp the detailing he was trying to convey. You can certainly gloss through some of his lyrical prose, and get the gist of what's going on, but to do that, you'd also miss a lot of the heart and soul of this book. And at 636 pages, it can take a bit of time to savor it all.

Taking place in the years just preceding the entry of the United States into World War II, the story revolves around two cousins. Sammy Clay is a New Yorker with dreams bigger than himself of becoming a rich and famous comic book artist. With the arrival of his Jewish cousin Josef Kavalier, freshly smuggled out of Nazi-controlled Prague thanks, in part, to his Houdini-like skills of illusion and escape, Sammy's aspirations are realized. Together, they create The Escapist and find themselves in the creative center of the Golden Age of comics, rubbing elbows with the likes of Stan Lee, Gil Kane, and Will Eisner. However, Joe feels guilty about his newly earned fortune, as his family still remains in Europe under the tyrannical control of Nazi Germany, and he struggles to find a balance between his happiness in New York and the pangs of guilt of leaving his family behind in Prague. Sammy, too, has his own inner demons to deal with despite getting all he had aspired to be.

To any comic book reader, past or present, this is a real gem of a book. Chabon certainly must have been one because he seems to accurately capture that dream we all had for that brief stint in our lives of becoming comic book artists by the story of Kavalier and Clay's rise in the industry. The backdrop of this early period of comic books when Superman and Batman were in their infancy also adds a nostalgic twist to our perceptions of comics today.

There's some pretty emotional and heartfelt stuff in here. Along with their own personal struggles, the cousins also find themselves within a somewhat complicated love triangle with the main female character of the book, Rosa Saks. And entwined within this epic story are a broad range of heavy issues from homosexuality to anti-Semitism to censorship to intellectual property rights. The characters, too, are fully realized in vivid detail, and you can't help but feel for them as the events of the book unfold.

I highly recommend giving The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay a chance for your next read (especially to Wander and Firecracker George--I think you guys as aspiring writers would like this book). It's a bit long, but hard to put down, and definitely worth every second you spend with it.