“Nobody—
nobody
—has produced a better parable about the condition of the national consciousness at century’s end.”—
The Boston Globe
An enduringly brilliant novel of trial and triumph set in America in the 1920s, from
New York Times
bestselling author Paul Auster
“A charmer pure and simple . . . Nothing less than the story of America itself.”—Jonathan Yardley,
The Washington Post
Paul Auster’s dazzling, picaresque novel is the story of Walter Claireborne Rawley, renowned nationwide as “Walt the Wonder Boy.” It is the late 1920s, the era of Babe Ruth, Charles Lindbergh, and Al Capone, and Walt is a Saint Louis orphan rescued from the streets by the mysterious Hungarian Master Yehudi, who teaches Walt to walk on air. The vaudeville act that results from Walt’s marvelous new ability takes them across a vast and vibrant country, where they meet and fall prey to sinners, thieves, and villains, from the Kansas Klu Klux Klan to the Chicago mob. Walt’s rise to fame and fortune mirrors America’s own coming of age, and his resilience, like that of the nation, is challenged over and again.