The Yiddish Policemen’s Union

by Michael Chabon
432 pages
Publisher: HarperCollins; 1 edition (May 1, 2007)
ISBN: 0007149824


Library Thing Info

Michael Chabon’s latest - deep breath - is a alternative-history, messiah-returns, noir-murder-mystery-and-romance. All in about 400 pages.

The biggie description there brings up the question of what kind of writer is Michael Chabon. There are so many out there that love little tags and genre signs to hang up all over the place. Chabon has written a Pulitzer prize winning novel (the Amazing The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay), a young adults book (Summerland), a Sherlock Holmes mystery, a couple of very literary novels and has edited to collection of Pulp fiction and a comic based on a character from K&C. Some hate this. They like little categories cubbies for everyone to fit in. I find this exciting. The question is of course , CAN he write and work in these different forms. The easy answer is you betcha!.

I believe Michael Chabon to be one of the best writers of the English language today - period. He could probably write a cookbook and the instructs would rock.

Now, onto this work - the Yiddish Policeman’s Union - a story of hope, love, murder, myths, and - of course- Alaska. The thing that Chabon continues to do, and does well, is the characters. They are very thick and juicy. This work combines all of the items in the description I gave in a deft but sometime awkward way. Keeping all of those items in the air at the same time is like juggling a chainsaw, a bowling ball and a feather all at the same time.

He focuses the story on the main character Meyer Landsman, a drunk solitary rogue-ish cop, who lives in a roach hotel and is summoned to the scene of a murder in one of the other rooms. This case becomes the obsession of Meyer who along with his partner and cousin, half-Tlingit, half-Jewish, Berko Shemets - a big man with a big heart and the semblance of a happy family life, get into the “seedy underbelly” of Sitka. All of this happens under the control of Meyer’s boss Brina, a sexy tough cop who happens to be Meyer’s ex-wife.

I think the book has it’s moments that are redeeming and the end moves quickly, but the beginning can be sluggish especially with all the elements. I read on comment that said - paraphrasing - that this is the best written cheesy murder mystery novel ever. That has some validness. But I think the alternative world and the vastness of the society - this fact based, but fictionalized “Jew-laska”(Chabon’s term) bring this far outside of the typical whodunit.

As mentioned at the beginning, Chabon is working to break out of the chains of genre verses literary works. I think there are groups of writers trying to do just that. The idea that a “genre” work can be literary - reflections on the human conditions, sophisticated characters, a vocabulary - and yet still entertain is a wonderful idea. I have never done well with the idea of cubby holing everything. And Chabon , since K&C, has basically taken that approach. He takes a bit of everything and whirls it around. Thankfully he has the writing chops to help hold that up.