The Yiddish Policemen's Union (edit title)

• Rated 5 stars

“An intriguing mystery with a "what if" premise (What if the Jewish state had been formed in Alaska?). Michael Chabon is a wonderful writer of sentences, and paragraphs, and character descriptions.”

• Rated 3 stars

“Interesting idea of an alternate universe. I think I like some of his earlier work a little better.”

• Rated 3 stars

“A little hard to read; had to take long breaks in between readings.

I thought the story was interesting and very unique but the way it was written was boring and couldn't quite keep my attention.”

• Rated 4 stars

“Ph book discussion”

• Rated 0 stars

“can't get into it”

• Rated 2 stars

“Detective and mafia Jews in Alaska. Novel but pointless.”

• Rated 5 stars

“I LOVED this book!

In an nutshell, it's a murder mystery about a Jewish junkie. Looking at it solely as a mystery, it's top notch. But it is so much more than that. Great things about this book: the writing, the characters, the details, the research, the alternative history and resulting society, the integrity, the Jewish culture. I found it fascinating, engrossing, and just so brilliantly done.

I don't see Chabon as a series writer, but I would love to visit this world and these people again in another book in the future.

Incidentally, as been stated often about this book, it does take a while to get into. I was expecting this, and really force myself to buckle down into the first 100 pages. At around page 115 it really kicked in for me, and I actually read this book slowly so that I could savor it.”

• Rated 3 stars

“Huge Chabon fan. That being said, I was a little disappointed in this book. Chabon's use of language is nothing short of astonishing, and hilarious (I almost never laugh out loud when I read a novel. But this one had me ROTFLMAO.). I also loved how he creates a whole new world. I really would like to see this alt-universe Sitka portrayed on film. However...Chabon's gifts as a master storyteller do not really emerge here, like they did so well in Wonder Boys and Kavalier and Clay. The story is uneven, and kinda peters out at the end. That whole scene at the island training camp for Zionist commandos left me scratching my head. Not as memorable as his previous work, but Kavalier and Clay was an impossible act to follow. Will eagerly await the next one.”

• Rated 3 stars

“This is a homage to the hard boiled detective story, in much the same way The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Klay was a homage to early comics. Like the earlier book, too, this one is about the difficulty and rewards of being Jewish in an anti-semitic world or gay in a straight world. It's also about the redemptive power of commitment to a code or a vision and of love.

It's set in a semi-autonomous Jewish enclave of about 3 million established in Alaska after the catastrophic failure and extermination of the nascent Jewish state in Palestine in 1948. There are other references to world events that weren't, but might have been, but I'll leave those for you to discover on your own--it'll be more fun that way. The hero is a homicide detective whose life is a failure in almost every way but who is still compelled to investigate a murder in another room of the flophouse in which he lives. In doing so he rediscovers himself.

A friend said that someone he knows read halfway through this book and lost interest, abandoning it. I can understand how that might happen, because somewhere just past the halfway point the headlong rush of the first half is set aside to explore the back story of some of the characters and much of the energy is gone for a while. Even after the plot begins moving again, it never has quite the same freshness and zip. For me, though, that was a worthwhile trade-off because the digressions made the overall book a much richer, complex and more resonant experience. To my friend's friend I would say, "Pick it up again. It's well worth it."

I really loved Chabon's amazing use of language. Most of the dialog (except when someone went off on a "rant") stayed faithful to the clipped, tough detective style, but in description he could sometimes take amazing flight. Here are a few examples.
(When a reluctant informant sees a picture of the victim) She nods, and the carapace of her weariness splits along a momentary seam.
(Of a gunsel) He's tall, even looming, with a forehead like a concrete bunker and an underslung jaw...His big hands dangle at his sides, pulsing like a couple of cephalapods...Landsman reads the twitch of a longing in the big man's fingers and tries to mark the vest for the presence of a gun.
(When the case brings a long estranged father and son together) It never takes longer than a few minutes, whenever they get together, for everyone to revert to the state of nature, like a party marooned by a shipwreck. That's what a family is. Also the storm at sea, the ship, and the unknown shore...And the fire that you light to keep away the beasts.
(After a phone call makes a coward bolder) Someone has decanted a small hopper of molten iron into his spine.”

• Rated 4 stars

“Great book. A hard boiled detective embedded in a slightly altered history. Despite the alternative history, it is in no way sci-fi. Incredible imagination, metaphors, and dialog.”