2 of 2 members found this review helpful.
“I like Michael Chabons' writing a lot, so I was quite surprised that I had difficulties "getting into it". I considered giving up on it, but slowly the plot, the place and the characters grew on me, and by page 150 I was hooked.
Chabon has created a complex parallel world, where the Jews have not been able to make Israel their homeland, and must find their place elsewhere in the world. In Sitka, Alaska, their time is almost up, and the Indians will win the vote for an end to the Jewish settlement. In the last few months before everybody will have to move, a junkie is found dead in the same hotel where Detective Meyer Landsman is staying. Here begins a grim tale of crime, corruption, religion, fanaticism, and FBI-plots; with a broken marriage, complex family relationships, and an exceptional friendship for light relief. Grey surroundings, defeated and hopeless people, in sad little lifes, with nothing to look forward to but trouble and hardship, do not make for comfortable reading.
This book is very noir, very hardboiled, with more than a hint of Chandler. Very well written, beautifully imagined, astonishingly complex. Not an easy read, but more than worth the effort. Still, I hope Chabon's next book is not as dark as this one.”
mjacobs wrote this review Wednesday, November 26 2008.
(
reply |
permalink )
