Book Review: The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

This book straddles three genres: Literary, crime/detective, and alternate-history science fiction. Overtly a hard-nosed detective story, it is set in Sitka, Alaska where, in Chabon's alternate history, the US set up a temporary settlement for European Jews during the early days of World War II. Meyer Landsman, a detective for the Sitka Central police, becomes involved in a case of a gunshot corpse found in the hotel where Landsman, himself, also lives. The case leads to a conspiracy involving covert US government agents and a zealously orthodox sect controlling all of Sitka's organized crime. And the conspiracy has tendrils that reach out to the entire world.

With engaging prose and vibrant characters, the story maintains interest throughout even when the plot seems to spin somewhat out of Chabon's control. Most of the conspiracy happens off screen (actually a decent way to handle a conspiracy plot, which is becoming increasingly hackneyed--I mean, really, can't we have a story with an act two twist that doesn't involve a vast international conspiracy?), and the original crime is solved almost as an afterthought. But, hey, Landsman protagged throughout, and didn't just sit around during the climax.

The main theme of the book is redemption. And it tells its story well. It's a book about coming to terms with oneself, one's society, and the world. In a way it's almost apocalyptic (the Sitka settlement is in the process of being disbanded), and it speaks to the human need to find something to hold on to, something to save, when the world is dissolving around you. This book has stuck with me more than any other book I've read recently (with the possible exception of Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men).

Chabon's world is well-drawn. I found myself, at random times, thinking about events of Chabon's history and their implications as if they actually happened. Someday, I hope to be half, even one tenth, the writer Chabon is.