The Yiddish Policemen's Union: A Novel (P.S.)
by Michael Chabon
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Book Reviews of The Yiddish Policemen's Union: A Novel (P.S.)
Book Review: Deliciously Multi-Layered
Summary: 5 Stars
Prior to U.S. involvement in World War II President Roosevelt proposed establishing a temporary Jewish settlement on the Alaskan panhandle. In The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Michael Chabon takes that premise and creates an alternate reality in which the impending "Reversion" (the frozen Chosen are about to be displaced from their temporary homeland) is but a few weeks away. Initially this is mere backdrop for the story of Meyer Landsman, a Sitka police detective suffering a bad case of bottle abuse the result of a never-born child and subsequent divorce, the possibility that his sister was murdered, and a father who committed suicide.
Landsman awakes in his fleabag hotel room one morning to learn that one of the other tenants has been murdered. Landsman learns the corpse is a chess prodigy and heroin addict, but also the wayward son of a powerful head of a Jewish sect and, possibly, the key to the future of the "Alyeskan" Jews. Against the orders of his boss, who also happens to be his ex-wife, Landsman's investigation, with help from his half-Tlingit, half-Jewish partner and half-cousin, takes him into the underworld of Orthodox black-hat gangs and crime-lord rabbis.
Chabon pays homage to Hammett and Chandler but manages to bring something new to the genre, and although some readers may find the narrative pushes the limits of their endurance - characters have skin "as pale as a page of commentary" and rough voices "like an onion rolling in a bucket;" "In the street the wind shakes rain from the flaps of its overcoat;" he writes of his protagonist, "Something wistful tugs at his memory, a whiff of some brand of aftershave that nobody wears anymore, the jangling chorus of a song that was moderately popular one August twenty-five summers ago." - others will be entranced.
If the plot of Policemen's Union is a trifle complex and its denouement - composed of elements of international terrorists complicated by a religious conspiracy and a group of end-of-the-world zealots - a little over the top, Chabon's treatment of this alternate history, its discount houses, seedy bars and pie shops, is razor sharp. The settings, the characters, the narrative all drive the plot. In Landsman Chabon has created a Jewish Phillip Marlowe (replete with porkpie hat); but where Marlowe is rather one-dimensional, Landsman is the everyman antihero, as prone to fits of self-pity and the urge to return to his room, and his bottle of slivovitz and his World's Fair souvenir glass, as he is committed to solving the mystery of this murder and tying it to the untimely death of his sister, all the while ruing his divorce while lacking the courage to make amends. The reader is compelled to follow Landsman across the pages to see what happens next, who he will meet next, whether it's the pie man's daughter or the diminutive Tlingit police inspector named Willie Dick (honest!).
Chabon also deftly explores the relationship between fathers and sons as well as what it means to be displaced - a people without a homeland, or as Landsman himself says, "My homeland is in my hat."
Highly recommended.
J. Conrad Guest for The Smoking Poet
Book Review: Wow!!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
This has to be one of the strangest novels I've read in many a year. I've read, and enjoyed, many works of alternative history. I'm also a fan of detective novels, especially the hard-boiled variety pioneered by Chandler and Hammett. I'm also something of an afficianado of Jewish culture and writing, though I'm not Jewish myself. I've been a fan of Herman Wouk's, for years, and I was especially a fan of the late Anton Myrer, and also of Chaim Potok. I'd never read anything by Michael Chabon before, never heard of him prior to the furor created when he won the Pulitzer for Kavalier and Clay. I'm not, in any real sense, a fan of modern, non-genre fiction. I like mysteries, some historical novels, and a few science fiction and fantasy books, though my tastes there tend to be very picky. All of that being said, I decided to try this book based on the appeal and the subject matter, and I wasn't disappointed.
Meyer Landsman is a homicide detective in Sitka, Alaska. The world however is different from the one we know of here. In our real world, in 1940, there was a proposal to open Alaska up to the refugees from Europe, especially the Jews. The non-voting congressman from Alaska lobbied hard and successfully to thwart the proposal. Author Chabon creates an alternative universe where the aforementioned congressman steps in front of a car crossing the street in Washington, and the proposal becomes the law. The Federal Government creates the "Federal Department of Sitka" and settles all of the Jewish refugees on several islands in Southern Alaska. The city of Sitka has a population of 4 million, and a vibrant culture that's slowly dying because, after sixty years, the U.S. Government has decided to close down the Federal Department and allow the land to revert to the control of the Tlingit tribe of Alaskan Indians, who own the surrounding land. They have been involved in clashes with the Jews repeatedly over the years, and have made it clear that since they didn't want to accommodate refugees in the first place, when they get the chance they'll tell the Jews to leave unilaterally.
Landsman is a prototypical detective. He drinks too much, he's not too smart, he's bad at following orders, he smells a bit. He's also a bit unconventional, at times: his ex-wife is his boss, and his cousin (a Tlingit Indian adopted into the Jewish faith) is also his partner. Landsman is living in a residence hotel, waiting for the end of the Federal Department, when someone kills a heroin addicted chess player who lives in another room in the building. Landsman feels some sort of kinship, and also a measure of insult that the killer dared to do this right under his nose, so to speak. As a result, when the ex-wife/boss tells him to back off on the case and let it go, he balks and decides to investigate anyway.
This is one of the strangest, most interesting books I've ever read. The author is obviously a fan of the hard-boiled detective novels of the previous century. He combines their style with a unique Yiddish argot that's sometimes hard to follow, but never impenetrable (at least to me) and frankly at times amusing. I enjoyed this book a great deal, and would recommend it highly to almost anyone.
Book Review: "Yiddish Policeman's Union" (From BookBanter)
Summary: 4 Stars
Michael Chabon is a writer that many other writers are envious of: he's young, he's brilliant, and his books will undoubtedly survive long after his is gone. Pulitzer Prize winner for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay aside, Chabon's writing seems almost effortless, but is pure craft and magic. Unlike John Irving, who plots out the complete story beforehand, and then meticulously crafts each sentence and paragraph to be perfect (which is why he can take up to five years to finish a book), Chabon has both the story and ability from the start in creating his piece of art.
The Yiddish Policemen's Union, like his other books, takes you to a place you never could've imagined. In this alternate reality, during the time of the Second World War, two million Jews are transported from Germany to Alaska, where they create their own small civilization meshed in the bitterness of their treatment in Germany and their treatment in Alaska, a cold and distant place from the contiguous United States. The main city is known as Sitka, but there is little independence, and any whisperings of nationalization are immediately quashed. Yiddish is the primary language, with very little American spoken. Little happens in this people's history from World War II to the present, other than a pathetic World's Fair that now only retains the constant reminder of the reaching stone structure known as the Safety Pin. Sitka is not a happy place for anyone, as they dream of Zion and their return to their true home.
Landsman is our main character, a policeman who's been in the service for many years but has little to show for it, apart from a trashed hotel room, a failed marriage, a dead sister, and his own depression over the state of his life. And it is then that he finds out about the dead body in the room nearby. A man has been murdered and the case begins. With his partner, Landsman travels around the area, picking up clues, and trying to piece together the ever-growingly complex case. At the same time, his ex-wife returns to the precinct now as his boss, with the news that big changes are happening and all outstanding cases must be dealt with post haste. But as Landsmen digs deeper, he finds a larger plot taking place, involving more bodies, and more importantly the death of his sister. The pressure increases from important people in high places, as Landsman with the help of his partner and ex-wife - who he is growing close to again - get closer and closer to the truth.
While my hope is that Chabon will return to this incredibly developed world in future stories, The Yiddish Policemen's Union is nevertheless a thrilling mystery: a Sherlock Holmes case with a Jewish twist, that keeps the reader hanging on until the end when the case is solved, and everyone seems happy. However, the state of Sitka and these many homeless Jews remains in jeopardy, to be resolved perhaps at a later date.
Originally written on April 29th, 2007 ŠAlex C. Telander.
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Book Review: Some interesting ideas, rich in detail, but it never really pulled me in
Summary: 3 Stars
Oy vey, this is one of those books that I know I should like, that has everything I would normally look for in a book, but for whatever reason it never really takes off for me. The setup: in 1940, before the Nazi "Final Solution" really takes off, a Jewish settlement is established in Alaska (Sitka). It is a lease, pending establishment (presumably in the Middle East) of a permanent homeland. Come "present time" the lease has ended, the Muslims/Arabs have destroyed Israel, and the two million Jews in Alaska are about to be kicked out and dispersed again.
At its root, this is a murder mystery, where a murdered man is found by a homocide detective, who is then warned off the case by his superior. Being a typical curious (and in this particular case, self-destructive) detective, he defies his superior and the investigation leads him through the various sub-sets of Judaism, including the secretive "Black Hats" (Hasidics) and the westernized "Yids" (European, Yiddish-speaking Jews). The book is full of rich details, both real and extrapolated. For example, derogatory terms are used by these Sitka Jews when referring to themselves (much like current African Americans use the "N"-word). The book's best character is probably the "Boundary Maven", who encloses areas with string so that they are "indoors" and therefore immune to certain Sabbath laws. It is these details of Jewish customs, and the liberal use of numerous Yiddish terms (note there is a glossary in the back of this paperback edition), that make this novel an immersive experience.
And yet.... The main character, upon whom much depends, is just not that interesting. He is self-destructive. He is an alcoholic. He lives in a pigsty. And he's just not interesting enough to want to root for him, or care much about him. Similarly, the conspiracy plot is one of those conspiracies that EVERYONE except the main character knows about. The Black Hats know about it. So do the FBI, the local police chief of the nearby Tlingit First Nation, the manager of a bush-pilot airport, and even one of the main character's relatives. And not one of them is going to spill the beans to the main character? The fact that I noticed things like this are evidence that I did not get sufficiently drawn in to the story, and that my mind was wandering at points.
It's a good book, but not a great book. It's fun, but not too much fun (certainly not "raucous" or "hilarious" as described in the critic quotes on the cover). In another bizarre choice, the voters of the Hugo Award called this the best science fiction novel of the year. Call me old-fashioned, but just because something is "alternate history" doesn't mean it's science fiction, any more than magic (Harry Potter or Amercan Gods) or fantasy (Paladin of Souls) is science fiction. Its other awards (e.g. Sideways Award for Alternate History) are more obvious, and it is undoubtedly a well-crafted alternate history novel.
Book Review: Chabon is back! Oy vey!
Summary: 5 Stars
It's taken a long time for Michael Chabon to write a real follow-up to his award-winning novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. During this seven year or so period, Chabon wasn't exactly idle: among other writing, he did produce an interesting novella (The Final Solution) and a forgettable young adults novel, Summerland. None of this, however, really like another Kavalier & Clay type of book. The Yiddish Policemen's Union is that long-awaited novel.
Although it doesn't really fit into one single genre, The Yiddish Policemen's Union is a mix of classic hardboiled mystery and science fiction (although technically, I suppose it fits better into that ambiguous genre of speculative fiction). Chabon has constructed an alternate reality where the state of Israel was never established; instead, Jews were given an area in Alaska to act as a temporary homeland and refuge from the horrors of WWII Europe. The emphasis here should be on "temporary"; sixty years after its establishment, the Federal District of Sitka is about to revert to the control of Alaska. Some Jews will be allowed to stay, but many will be kicked out.
With Reversion just a couple months away, homicide detective Meyer Landsman gets involved in a murder that most people don't want solved. Landsman is a typical hardboiled detective in the mold of Philip Marlowe or Lew Archer: he drinks a lot, has little in the way of money or friends and is constant defiance of authority. To make matters worse, his boss is also his ex-wife, Bina, who wants the Reversion to go smoothly (hopefully leading to both permanent residency and a job).
The murder victim is a heroin addict staying at the residence hotel that Landsman is living in. Since Bina doesn't want open cases, she has this one put in the cold case file, but Landsman feels obligated to solve a killing that took place more-or-less in his home. The victim, however, is not a mere junkie; instead he turns out to have been a potential Messiah, a role the victim did not exactly enjoy. There are, though, many who did want this Messiah, including the victim's father, a powerful rabbi.
To solve the crime will require all the standard things a hard-boiled detective needs to go through: gunfights, blows to the head, threatened job loss, powerful enemies, and so on. What's actually going on turns out to be more complicated than a simple killing. What makes this stand out from a routine mystery is, of course, the exotic setting, which is where Chabon really shines: he has created an alternate world which is well-constructed and essential to the story.
While really good, this is not a perfect novel; it's biggest flaw is that starts somewhat slow, but when it does pick up, it moves right along. Overall, this book is worth the wait: it's not Kavalier & Clay, but it's close enough.