Scan barcode
A review by mburnamfink
The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon
5.0
Chabon is one of those indisputable geniuses, who manages to garner praise from the literary elite, genre audiences, and the popular press. The Yiddish Policemen's Union is a stylish alternate history novel and noir thriller centered around Jewish Alaska and human destiny.
Yeah, Jewish Alaska. In 1940 the United States decided to settle Jewish Refugees around Sikta, a plan that in our timeline was blocked by Anthony Dimond. With the influx of refugees, the Holocaust only killed 2 million Jews, Israel lost its war for independence, and the timeline diverged in a thousand small ways. Though they live in Alaska, the Sitka Jews certainly aren't Americans, and in two months their Yiddish-speaking quasi-nation will cease to exist, as it reverts back to the United States at the end of the 60 year treaty.
Meyer Landsman is a homicide detective with the Sikta police force, who's slow-motion suicide via plum brandy is interrupted when one of the other residents in his fleabag motel is murdered. It's just another heroin junkie dead, but he's a neighbor, and Meyer makes it a mission to give the young man some peace, despite the warnings of his partner and cousin Johnny Berko (a massive half-Indian Jew) and his new boss and ex-wife Bima, who's trying to hand the transition authority a clean desk. Meyer stumbles into something much bigger than he is. The dead man is Mendel Shpilman, estranged son of the Orthodox Rabbi/Organized Crime Boss, and a plausible candidate for Tzadik ha-Dor, a potential Messiah born every generation. Hardboiled detective work mixes with international espionage, applied eschatology, and the blend of love and betrayal that means family.
The idea that is at heart of this book is "a twist in his soul", a beautiful phrase used to describe the dead Mendel, which refers to both his Messianic blessings, his easy genius, his homosexuality, and his eventual addiction and death. The twist is in Meyer, in his obsession with homicide work, the deep wounds that he believes he inflicted on his father and ex-wife, in the whole topsy-turney world of Jewish Sitka and the deals that threaten to make it and unmake. Chabon writes in a way that implies that we are all twists; little vortexes in the great flow of life.
And of course, he's a fantastic descriptive writer, a miracle worker of his own with metaphor and the senses. Jewish Sikta feels alive in a way that is rare in literature, in all of its rich contradictions. It's a modern city and an overgrown shtetl where everyone is related and tied into a rich web of gossip; the chief divine is also the chief gangster; and escape from the past is impossible even as it's being obliterated.
I could gripe (I always can), that perhaps the pastiche of noir is little more than pastiche, that the women in this world, Meyer's ex-wife Bina, dead sister Naomi, and the Rabbi's wife Batsheva, are more interesting than the men, and sadly under-served by the story. Perhaps even that the alternate history is a mere gloss that does little to expand the discussion of Jewishness. But this are minor complaints against the power of this masterpiece.
*****
August 2012 review
One part Philip Roth Jewish kvetching, one part Raymond Chandler hardboiled detective, and a dash of Philip K Dick alt-history, this book is a wonder. I won't ruin the plot, but all I can say is that Chabon is an undisputed grandmaster of sensual writing. Jewish Sitka is one of the realist fictional places I've read about, the predicament of its fundamentally lost characters all too familiar.
Who needs sleep when you have literature?
Yeah, Jewish Alaska. In 1940 the United States decided to settle Jewish Refugees around Sikta, a plan that in our timeline was blocked by Anthony Dimond. With the influx of refugees, the Holocaust only killed 2 million Jews, Israel lost its war for independence, and the timeline diverged in a thousand small ways. Though they live in Alaska, the Sitka Jews certainly aren't Americans, and in two months their Yiddish-speaking quasi-nation will cease to exist, as it reverts back to the United States at the end of the 60 year treaty.
Meyer Landsman is a homicide detective with the Sikta police force, who's slow-motion suicide via plum brandy is interrupted when one of the other residents in his fleabag motel is murdered. It's just another heroin junkie dead, but he's a neighbor, and Meyer makes it a mission to give the young man some peace, despite the warnings of his partner and cousin Johnny Berko (a massive half-Indian Jew) and his new boss and ex-wife Bima, who's trying to hand the transition authority a clean desk. Meyer stumbles into something much bigger than he is. The dead man is Mendel Shpilman, estranged son of the Orthodox Rabbi/Organized Crime Boss, and a plausible candidate for Tzadik ha-Dor, a potential Messiah born every generation. Hardboiled detective work mixes with international espionage, applied eschatology, and the blend of love and betrayal that means family.
The idea that is at heart of this book is "a twist in his soul", a beautiful phrase used to describe the dead Mendel, which refers to both his Messianic blessings, his easy genius, his homosexuality, and his eventual addiction and death. The twist is in Meyer, in his obsession with homicide work, the deep wounds that he believes he inflicted on his father and ex-wife, in the whole topsy-turney world of Jewish Sitka and the deals that threaten to make it and unmake. Chabon writes in a way that implies that we are all twists; little vortexes in the great flow of life.
And of course, he's a fantastic descriptive writer, a miracle worker of his own with metaphor and the senses. Jewish Sikta feels alive in a way that is rare in literature, in all of its rich contradictions. It's a modern city and an overgrown shtetl where everyone is related and tied into a rich web of gossip; the chief divine is also the chief gangster; and escape from the past is impossible even as it's being obliterated.
I could gripe (I always can), that perhaps the pastiche of noir is little more than pastiche, that the women in this world, Meyer's ex-wife Bina, dead sister Naomi, and the Rabbi's wife Batsheva, are more interesting than the men, and sadly under-served by the story. Perhaps even that the alternate history is a mere gloss that does little to expand the discussion of Jewishness. But this are minor complaints against the power of this masterpiece.
*****
August 2012 review
One part Philip Roth Jewish kvetching, one part Raymond Chandler hardboiled detective, and a dash of Philip K Dick alt-history, this book is a wonder. I won't ruin the plot, but all I can say is that Chabon is an undisputed grandmaster of sensual writing. Jewish Sitka is one of the realist fictional places I've read about, the predicament of its fundamentally lost characters all too familiar.
Who needs sleep when you have literature?