Just finished this book, and I'm surprised that I haven't
seen any discussion of it on this list, especially in light
of all of the enthusiasm some of the Rara Avians showed for
Cormac MacCarthy's NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN and THE ROAD
earlier this year.
Chabon is well-known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning work THE
ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER AND KLAY, and as a public and
unabashed fan of so-called "genre fiction." And with THE
YIDDISH POLICEMAN'S UNION he uses the detective novel (in
this case featuring a homicide detective named Meyer
Landsman) as a vehicle for exploring such ideas as guilt,
atonement, redemption (and literally "redeemers" in the sense
of "messiahs"), the role of the individual within a larger
family, and conversely, the role of the family in the larger
individual.
And he does this with prose so powerful, characters so
sharply drawn, imagery so crisp, pathos so evocative as to
make you want open a vein by the end of act I, all wrapped in
the kind of snake's-back-of-a-plot that would have made Ross
MacDonald at his best seem like Robert B. Parker.
What's more, Chabon creates a completely plausible fictional
world as the back-drop (and as with all of the best settings,
as a character in its own right): an alternate reality in
which the United States started allowing Jewish refugees from
fascist Europe to settle in a "federal district" shaved from
the panhandle of the then-Alaska Territory in 1940. These
Jews, the so-called "Sitka Jews" develop their own twist on
Jewish exile: a region where Yiddish is spoken first and
"American" second; with its own customs, slang, government,
police force, and the over-arching, uncomfortable knowledge
that the Federal District of Sitka is intended to "revert" to
Alaska after 60 years. The action of this novel takes place
two months before "reversion" is slated to occur, with Jews
uncertain of their future once the local natives take back
their islands in the district fleeing for climes like "Sunny
Saskatchewan," Argentina and Australia (In this timeline the
post-war state of Israel c
ollapsed in the 1948 war, so there is no "homeland" for
these Jews to return to, with Palestine under Arab
control).
This situation makes for a lot of tension within the plot,
and serves as one hell of an effective back-drop for a murder
investigation by the protagonist, a (stop me if you've heard
this before) burned-out homicide detective circling the
drain: drinking problem and smoking problem intact; marriage
in the toilet; career headed down a dead-end alley. The
character of Meyer Landsman is one of the great literary
homages to an honored archetype. The fact that Chabon is able
to pull this off without turning Landsman into a composite
stereotype (whiny Jewish loner detective) is no mean
feat.
There's lots more. This is a dark book, hard-boiled, bleak
landscape, hopeless situation, black humor, sarcasm, the
importance of friendship, the price of loyalty, big themes,
played against the backdrop of a long Alaskan winter.
I recommend it without reservation.
All the Best-
Brian Thornton
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