I bought this book in paperback some time ago, started reading, mislaid it and bought the ebook. The print copy has turned up again, but I finished it in ebook. It’s quite a read!
Two young Jewish men, cousins, work on comic books in 1930s/40s New York. One of them, Josef Kavalier, is from Prague. He is a trained stage magician and escape artist(a huge fan of Houdini) who has escaped the Nazis with the help of his fellow magicians, in a coffin holding the Golem, the 16th century clay defender of the Jews, which was still hidden away in Prague. Joe is also a terrific artist who has a great imagination. Sammy Clay, his cousin, helps frame the stories and writes the scripts. Together they create their first comics superhero, the Escapist. The novel goes through the early history of the American comic book industry, till 1954.
I thought at first it might have been inspired by the two Jewish boys who created Superman, but they are mentioned and Joe and Sammy are asked to create something like Superman. The difference is that they get a warning against the error of handing over all their rights, so do much better financially than Siegel and Shuster!
However, Joe and Sammy have many personal issues, even as the stories of their superheroes are read and loved by children around the country. Joe is worrying for his family in Europe, and desperately wanting an excuse to kill Germans, while Sammy has even deeper personal issues which could get him into deep trouble in 1940s America…
Interestingly, they are told not to have stories with Nazi villains, at least until America enters the war, something that did happen in the real world of comics. In fact, the characters and story are inspired by real Jewish comic book creators of the time.
There are some delightful humorous side characters in this book, such as their bosses at Empire Comics, part of which started life as a seller of novelty gadgets. They can’t figure out how it all happened, but the comics are selling very well, so why not?
If you are interested in a part of American Jewish history, this is not only instructional, but thoroughly entertaining. If you are a fan of speculative fiction, you will also enjoy it, though I do have to say there is only one fantasy element, the Golem; the rest is straight historical fiction.
Michael Chabon is a third generation comics fan - his grandfather worked as a typographer at a plant producing comic books, which he brought home to his son, Michael’s father, who also gave comic books to his son, Michael. What a family tradition!
It won a Pulitzer Prize in 2001, which might interest you if you are a literary fiction fan. I’m not, but am glad that such a wonderful book that I found enjoyable, got an award and was short listed for several others.
You can get it in ebook or print from Amazon, or ebook in Apple Books. Book Depository also has it, in print and audiobook.
I've never heard of this book -- thanks for bringing it to my attention!
ReplyDeleteThe first Captain America comic was published in March 1941, nine months before the USA entered World War II. It had explicitly Nazi villains (including Hitler himself) and its purpose was precisely to raise American sentiment to end isolationism and join the war. So not everyone followed that "no Nazis in comic books" rule.
Hi Sue - it looks really interesting ... I've made a note - so perhaps later in the year I'll get to look into it again. Thanks so much for the interesting books around ... cheers Hilary
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