The Complete Maus

The first and only graphic novel to win the Pulitzer Prize, *MAUS* is a brutally moving work of art about a Holocaust survivor, and the son who survives him. "The first masterpiece in comic book history," as *The New Yorker* so aptly puts it. *MAUS* tells the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler's Europe, and his son, a cartoonist, coming to terms with his father's story. Approaching the unspeakable through the diminutive, where the Nazis are depicted as cats and the Jews as mice, Vladek's harrowing story of survival is woven into the author's account of his tortured relationship with his aging father. Against the backdrop of guilt brought by survival, they stage a normal life of small arguments and unhappy visits, studying the bloody pawprints of history and tracking its meaning for those who come next. Hailed as the greatest graphic novel of all time, this combined definitive edition includes *MAUS I: A Survivor's Tale* and *MAUS II*. As *The Wall Street Journal* so eloquently states, it is "the most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust." *The Boston Globe* describes it as "a brutally moving work of art." Critics and authors alike have praised *MAUS*, with Adam Gopnik saying, "No summary can do justice to Spiegelman's narrative skill." Philip Pullman notes that "like all great stories, it tells us more about ourselves than we could ever suspect." Michael Chabon simply calls Spiegelman "a capital-G Genius."