The Yiddish Policemen's Union: A Novel (P.S.)
by Michael Chabon
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Book Summary Information
Author: Michael ChabonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-04-29
ISBN: 0007149832
Number of pages: 464
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Book Reviews of The Yiddish Policemen's Union: A Novel (P.S.)
Book Review: The Last Days
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the third Chabon book that I have read (after THE FINAL SOLUTION and THE MYSTERIES OF PITTSBURGH) and it is unquestionably the best -- imaginative, audacious, thought-provoking, and humane. As I gather he did with KAVALIER & CLAY, Chabon takes a genre of popular fiction, in this case the police story, and transforms it into a vehicle capable of carrying significant insights into the human condition, and particularly the complex crosscurrents of Jewish identity. For some reason this fascinates me, and I have read a good deal of post-Holocaust fiction, but I felt that I understood more about Jewish life in America, especially among the orthodox, from reading this book than from any other author since Chaim Potok (e.g. THE CHOSEN or MY NAME IS ASHER LEV).
Chabon creates an alternative historical reality on the basis of three plausible assumptions. The first is that, in the years before the War, America created a home for a limited number of Jewish refugees in Sitka, on the South-East coast of Alaska; (this plan was actually floated, but never brought to a vote). Second, that the new state of Israel was overrun by its enemies shortly after its founding, causing a massive exodus of people to be accommodated in this small area, giving rise to a large city built up over islands and a narrow strip of land. The third assumption is that these refugees were not accepted as American immigrants, but as temporary nationals of the new entity, leased for a period of sixty years. So while Jewish Sitka is a self-governing city-state, with Yiddish its official language, and with its own police force, this authority is precarious. For one thing, different sects have taken over different parts of the city, effectively maintaining their own law, even sometimes in opposition to the official law. For another, the sixty-year lease is about to expire, and the action of the book takes place in the last weeks before Reversion, when Jews who have not made other arrangements will be forced out again in yet another Exodus.
One such unprepared unfortunate is our protagonist, an alcoholic homicide detective named Meyer Landsman. One of the other residents in the fleabag hotel where he lives is found murdered, with a chess game set out on a board beside him. Even though his superiors tell him to drop the case, Landsman persists in his attempts to discover who the victim really was, and who killed him. This thread sews the plot together and leads to some surprising places. Ultimately, however, it is not the whodunnit element that is important; we discover the answer, but that is a minor detail in the almost apocalyptic drama of fear and destiny that is revealed in the shadow of the last days of the Jewish people in Sitka. But while specifically Jewish in context, I find the book also is full of insight into the fundamentalist mindset generally, and it is very much a reflection of forces in American politics of our own time.
Chabon is equally successful on the intimate level. We come to know a lot about Myer Landsman: the suicide of his chess grandmaster father, the death of his sister in a flying accident, and his separation from his wife Bina after the abortion of their unborn child. This last relationship is further complicated when Bina turns up as Meyer's new boss, but the unraveling of the case also has the effect of bringing the past and present together, in ways that are ultimately deeply satisfying, and give the book human warmth as a ballast to its flights of brilliance. If you come to the novel as a Gentile (and perhaps even as a Jew), you will be plunged into a world that seems hermetic, claustrophic, extremely strange. When you finish it, you will understand where the strangeness comes from. More, you will be left with a small group of human beings whom you have come to know as intimately as if they were your own family or neighbors.
Summary of The Yiddish Policemen's Union: A Novel (P.S.)
For sixty years Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the Federal District of Sitka, a "temporary" safe haven created in the wake of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. The Jews of the Sitka District have created their own little world in the Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant and complex frontier city that moves to the music of Yiddish. But now the District is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end.
Homicide detective Meyer Landsman of the District Police has enough problems without worrying about the upcoming Reversion. His life is a shambles, his marriage a wreck, his career a disaster. And in the cheap hotel where Landsman has washed up, someone has just committed a murder?right under his nose. When he begins to investigate the killing of his neighbor, a former chess prodigy, word comes down from on high that the case is to be dropped immediately, and Landsman finds himself contending with all the powerful forces of faith, obsession, evil, and salvation that are his heritage.
At once a gripping whodunit, a love story, and an exploration of the mysteries of exile and redemption, The Yiddish Policemen's Union is a novel only Michael Chabon could have written.
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