Chabon takes his multilayered story up to the Eisenhower era—a time when comic books came under increased scrutiny and attack. America had lost its innocence during the war, and now was suspicious of everything, even Superman and Batman. Kavalier and Clay can hardly hope to escape unscathed in this troubled age when the caped crusaders of yore are knocked down to size, and anti-heroes are in the ascendancy. History again intervenes in our story, and Clay is called upon to testify before the Senate Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency, where he is vilified and outed . . . and, in a strange way, also liberated.
Chabon maintains an impressive balancing act throughout this book. He manages to capture the flavor of pulp fiction, without its banality. He stuffs his novel with more plot twists than an old movie serial, but never loses the thread of his main story. He captures a surreal sense of fantasy, without abandoning the grounded History (with a capital H) of his narrative. And—yes!—he shows how flawed our heroes are, but lets us keep cheering them on as though they really could leap tall buildings in a single bound. Amazing adventures, indeed!
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