The Yiddish Policemen’s Union Michael Chabon Harper Collins. NZ$38
First off Bookman Beattie must extend his thanks to Sandra Noakes, Publicist at Harper Collins NZ, for going to the trouble of sending him by courier an advance proof copy of this title the day he left for Europe.
This is a masterful piece of fiction from Michael Chabon, his first novel in 7 years.
On the surface it would appear to be a work of crime fiction featuring a smart-ass wise guy cop, Detective Myer Landsman. This guy is a brilliant detective with a long line of solved cases but in his private life he is a loser, drinks heavily, smokes constantly, his wife (also a cop) has left him, and he lives in a sleazy hotel occupied by other losers. He is essentially a good guy but a highly flawed one.
The story gets underway with a call from the hotel’s night manager, a former US Marine, to say that the occupant of room 208 has been found killed by a single shot to the head.
The story soon departs from the standard crime fiction genre because of its setting in an imagined reservation within Alaska that was set aside for Yiddish speaking Jews in 1941.
It is a fictional story that takes place in the real city of Sitka.
It also describes the fictional destruction of the State of Israel in 1948 following an unsuccessful struggle for independence.
Chabron is, of course a highly accomplished descriptive writer, and the story takes us deeper and deeper into some fairly serious conflict between the Yids and the Americans, all against the background of the fictional city of Sitka being taken back into the State of Alaska.
Through it all, Landsman and his detective partner, Berko, pursue the murderer,(who clearly has friends in high places),with Landsman getting into all sorts of scrapes and receiving all sorts of beatings and injuries.
Absolutely typical crime fiction in that sense but Chabon gives us far more in this astonishing and most unusual novel which is as much about religious extremism, Jewish exile and their dreams of their own secure state. All generously laced with laugh out loud Yiddish humour.
Chabon’s last title, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, won him the Pulitzer Prize.
First off Bookman Beattie must extend his thanks to Sandra Noakes, Publicist at Harper Collins NZ, for going to the trouble of sending him by courier an advance proof copy of this title the day he left for Europe.
This is a masterful piece of fiction from Michael Chabon, his first novel in 7 years.
On the surface it would appear to be a work of crime fiction featuring a smart-ass wise guy cop, Detective Myer Landsman. This guy is a brilliant detective with a long line of solved cases but in his private life he is a loser, drinks heavily, smokes constantly, his wife (also a cop) has left him, and he lives in a sleazy hotel occupied by other losers. He is essentially a good guy but a highly flawed one.
The story gets underway with a call from the hotel’s night manager, a former US Marine, to say that the occupant of room 208 has been found killed by a single shot to the head.
The story soon departs from the standard crime fiction genre because of its setting in an imagined reservation within Alaska that was set aside for Yiddish speaking Jews in 1941.
It is a fictional story that takes place in the real city of Sitka.
It also describes the fictional destruction of the State of Israel in 1948 following an unsuccessful struggle for independence.
Chabron is, of course a highly accomplished descriptive writer, and the story takes us deeper and deeper into some fairly serious conflict between the Yids and the Americans, all against the background of the fictional city of Sitka being taken back into the State of Alaska.
Through it all, Landsman and his detective partner, Berko, pursue the murderer,(who clearly has friends in high places),with Landsman getting into all sorts of scrapes and receiving all sorts of beatings and injuries.
Absolutely typical crime fiction in that sense but Chabon gives us far more in this astonishing and most unusual novel which is as much about religious extremism, Jewish exile and their dreams of their own secure state. All generously laced with laugh out loud Yiddish humour.
Chabon’s last title, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, won him the Pulitzer Prize.
For more on Chabon visit the Wikipedia website.
This book may not be everyone’s cup of tea, and I suspect it will prove to be controversial in the US, but I enjoyed it from beginning to end.
This book may not be everyone’s cup of tea, and I suspect it will prove to be controversial in the US, but I enjoyed it from beginning to end.
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