Content Warning: This guide and the source text contain references to police violence, rape, anti-gay prejudice and violence, antisemitism, and the persecution of Jewish people by the Nazi regime.

Most of the novel’s action, as well as its thematic exploration of Escape and Freedom and The Healing Power of Art, centers around Joe. Joe is an immigrant, born and raised in Prague, then sent by his family to stay with his aunt and cousin in the United States around the time Nazi Germany annexed Czechoslovakia in 1938. Joe is an intelligent and talented youth. He learns the art of escape from an old magician, Bernard Kornblum, and those skills and experiences play a great role throughout Joe’s life. Later on, in the US, Joe and his cousin Sam become successful producers of comic books during the war years.

Joe is overwhelmed by a sense of duty and guilt, having been granted freedom from the Nazis while his family must remain behind. Guilt and frustration boil over with the death of Joe’s brother, Thomas, and Joe leaves his entire life behind to join the navy and kill Germans. However, Joe is stationed far away from the action, and when he is finally able to exact his revenge, it is against a German researcher, not a soldier, in Antarctica.