The Yiddish Policemen's Union

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

Category: Novel Grade: B+

There's no denying that Michael Chabon has both abundant talent and abundant imagination. In lesser hands, this book could have been an absolute disaster. In his, it's a readable, entertaining and very unusual book. The premise -- it's modern day Sitka, Alaska. This is a "temporary" settlement zone that the U.S. set aside for Jewish refugees after their imagined expulsion from the short-lived land of Israel in 1948. The story takes place in the last couple of months before "Reversion" - the plan by the fundamentalist twenty-first century government of the U.S. to give Alaska back to the Alaskans. Some of the Jews will be allowed to stay - most will have to leave for parts unknown.

That's the setting. Within the setting, most of the books is a murder mystery featuring detective Meyer Landsman. He's living in a flophouse hotel a few years after his divorce from the woman who is now his boss in the Homicide Division of Sitka Central. He's a totally mal-adjusted drunk and a so-so policeman. His partner, Berko Shemets, is a hulking half-Tinglit half-orthodox Jew. The story begins when Meyer is called downstairs by the manager of the flophouse to investigate the death of one of the other residents - a Jewish junkie who was shot in the head shortly after servicing his heroin habit.

For the most part, the "Jews in Alaska" premise doesn't mean much to the first third or the last third of the story other than to give Chabon a lot of chances to use Yiddish words and phrases and to include a lot of Jewish names. As the story develops, however, we're plunged in to the world of the Verbov Rabbi - a Hasidic cult who left Europe for Alaska and has become not just a messianic cult, but also the largest organized crime family in the district. You begin to see why I say that turning this in to a readable book takes a major talent.

While this isn't nearly in the league of Chabon's major work so far - The Amazing Adventures of Kavlier and Clay - it's still a great showcase for his abilities. He could easily be the best of a young crop of writers just making their way up the world of literary fiction. He's an incredibly visual writer that can make you see what he wants you to see with a few words. I'll give one example. The first time that Landsman goes to the Verbov community he finds that the core of the community is a near replica of the European village that the group came from, except for the fact that the houses are new and the streets are clean. Chabon tells us that the area at the core of the Verbov world is a "Disneyland shtetl" and, bingo, you have a near perfect picture in your mind of what he wants you to see -- in two words!

Overall, this is kind of bell-curve of book. It begins, even though there's a murder right away, as a very small, kind of personal book. It's the story of Landsman's disintegrating life set in the context of the destruction of the world he knows by the fast approaching "Reversion". The middle of the book shoots up like shape of the bell curve and becomes a huge story of cultural and geopolitical battles and gives full attention to the Jewish theme of the book. It then trails back in to Landsman's world and ends almost with a sigh.

Even though I gave the book a decent grade, I'm not sure whether I recommend it or not. I almost put it down a couple of times, although I'm glad I didn't. It's a fairly complicated story and, at times, hard to follow. I'm glad Chabon wrote this instead of a lesser talent. Even with all his talent, Chabon really skirted the edge of strange with this one.