It is New York City in 1939. Joe Kava­lier, a young artist who has also been trained in the art of Hou­diniesque escape, has just pulled off his great­est feat to date: smug­gling him­self out of Nazi-occu­pied Prague. He is look­ing to make big mon­ey, fast, so that he can bring his fam­i­ly to free­dom. His cousin, Brook­lyn’s own Sam­my Clay, is look­ing for a col­lab­o­ra­tor to cre­ate the heroes, sto­ries, and art for the lat­est nov­el­ty to hit the Amer­i­can dream­scape: the com­ic book. Out of their fan­tasies, fears, and dreams, Joe and Sam­my weave the leg­end of that unfor­get­table cham­pi­on the Escapist. And inspired by the beau­ti­ful and elu­sive Rosa Saks, a woman who will be linked to both men by pow­er­ful ties of desire, love, and shame, they cre­ate the oth­er­world­ly mis­tress of the night, Luna Moth. As the shad­ow of Hitler falls across Europe and the world, the Gold­en Age of com­ic books has begun.

Win­ner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.