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| The Yiddish Policemen's Union: A Novel (P.S.) | 
| Author: Michael Chabon
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  286 reviews
Sales Rank: 1602
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 464
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5 x 1.3
ISBN: 0007149832
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780007149834
ASIN: 0007149832
Publication Date: May 1, 2008
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Product Description
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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| Customer Reviews: Read 281 more reviews...
 Deliciously Multi-Layered October 4, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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
 Egregiously Over-Hyped and Overwritten! October 3, 2008
I bought this book, because like some others here I was duped by the hype, and also because -- appearance-wise -- this paperback is one of the most gorgeously designed I've ever seen. They certainly gave him the star treatment.
But what about the content, you ask?
I couldn't finish it. I got almost halfway through and because I felt like ripping my hair out I had to put it down. An overly fussy style coupled with a plodding pace is a recipe for BOREDOM. I do like challenging stuff, stuff that's different, outre', whatever you want to call it. But this book tries WAY too hard to be "literary" and "clever" and so becomes obnoxious as hell. This is exactly the kind of book that gives "literature" a bad name. I'd rather read anything by James Patterson or Danielle Steele (and I hate those guys) than be forced to finish this book with all its over-baked metaphors, similes, and show-offy nonsense on every page.
I think Chabon would've done well to heed some of John Gardner's advice about writing:
"...such writers do present characters, actions, and the rest, but becloud them in a mist of beautiful noise, forever getting in the way of *what* they are saying by the splendor of their way of saying it. Eventually one begins to suspect that the writer cares more about his gift than about his characters."
Also: "He tries to make every chapter zing, tries dense symbolism and staggeringly rich prose; he violates the novelistic pace."
P.S. -- The fact that this book won a Nebula is a joke. I can think of at least a dozen Sci-Fi writers who are way more talented than Chabon, but who aren't getting anywhere near his level of fame and financial success. It really is a cruel world.
Really, really good October 1, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I almost gave up on this book. I'm not Jewish and I found the generous serving of Yiddish words to be very discouraging and a barrier to appreciating the book fully. At page 150 I was ready to put it down, but because the book received so much praise (I think the Economist called it one of the best books of 2007), I forced myself to continue and am so glad I did. I finally got into the groove of the novel and found myself awestruck by the way the author's words could capture such true-to-life feelings and conversations. The author's writing style and the way he can write a conversation between characters makes other authors' representations of characters and words seem contrived. WARNING - Plot spoiler: He even got me to accept the eventual reuniting of Detective Landsman and his ex-wife as a perfectly natural thing (even though at the beginning of the book, the only thing I hoped for was that the author would not pander to the audience's natural desire for happy endings). All I can say to those who are turned off by the book is to keep at it, you'll be rewarded. You may even speak Yiddish by the end of it.
 A Tale Of Two Books September 23, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I had heard many good things about the writer and this book, and based upon this I was looking forward to reading this work. The writer is very skillful in setting up his story as well as its setting. It is understood that a portion of any book is taken up by the writer setting up his plot line as well as introducing his characters. It is unfortunate that it takes over 200 pages for the book to begin moving its plot line with any sustained interest. I was continually asking myself, "Why have I not put this book down?". It is not well done at all. Aside from the three major characters, the writrt does a poor job in character development. The book finally picks up with one or two surprises existing. Numerous characters drop in and out without any real development. The book leaves much to be desired as it plods alog into mediocrty. For a good nights rest, one might wish to consider it. It an be said of this story that the juice received at the end is NOT worth the squeeze.
Yiddish Policemen's Union September 12, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Michael Chabon has written a masterpiece of a mystery with The Yiddish Policemen's Union. Imagine Fargo in Alaska, with an imaginary Jewish community. In his book, Chabon has rewritten history - making the area around Sitka, Alaska a temporary homeland for the Jewish nation after (in the book) the nation of Israel has failed. In two months, this temporary oasis will revert to its former status as part of the US and all inhabitants will need to apply for permanent residency or be kicked out, facing a new diaspora.
In the midst of these unsettling events, Landsman the homicide detective faces unsettling of his own. He is burned out, living in a flop house where a dead body has just shown up. His ex-wife has just become his boss. And he's sporting serious, constant questions about what to do with his life, now that he doesn't really have a life.
To tell the plot would be to spoil the plot, so let's satisfy ourselves with the word that the pacing is slow at first but draws the reader into an imaginary world. By the end of the 1st act of the book, you are engrossed and cannot stop.
I would be remiss to not mention that there has been criticism of the book for its depiction of Jews in Alaska as criminals and as argumentative. This is fair, but one must remember this is a story where the lead is a homicide detective and the entire culture is unsettled by possibly being returned to exile.
And that's the masterpiece of the book. What would people do to discover permanence? What would Landsman do? And in this mystery wrapped within a mystery novel, Chabon presents a beautiful puzzle.
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