Here's a picture of my favorite elf carrying the Christmas tree home. We don't have a chimney, so she has to bring it in through the front door.On to a book that takes place in the cold, but Christmas is not celebrated.
The Yiddish Policeman's Union is the kind of book that earns you odd looks when you read it on the train.
The title is a bit odd, but the cover is very attention grabbing. It's very evocative of the book, which is an interesting amalgam of Jewish and Tlingit totems.
Michael Chabon is a master at delving into the lives of his characters, and, in this book, he's succeeded wonderfully. The story is part noir-detective novel, part mystery, part social commentary and, above all, fully engaging.
It's a little hard to get past the first few pages if you're not exposed to a lot of Yiddish speakers, but once you get the rhythm, it's a snap.
The story concerns his vision of how the world would be different if Israel fell to a disorganized mass of Arabs, Persians, and Palestinians in 1948 and all of the Jewish inhabitants dispersed. Many of them moved to Alaska when the US government allowed them temporary status in that territory, thinking the tumult in Israel would be solved in a year or two.
It's now been 60 years, and certain factions of the US government have decided the Jews must leave at the end of the year. The fact that they've turned Sitka, Alaska into a booming megapolis of 3 million isn't taken into consideration.
A seemingly inconsequential murder makes several balls start to roll and our heroes, members of the Yiddish Policeman's Union, start to unearth the real tale behind "reversion" and many other dark secrets.
Given the topic, it sounds as though the book would be maudlin, or at least somber. But it's actually light-hearted and strangely optimistic.
Chabon is clearly a gentle soul, and many of his characters have a soft center that lurks just behind their sometimes hard shells. His writing style is clever and he forms so many interesting metaphors and similes that you'll have to stop just to admire them.
While reading the book, I tried to convince everyone I encountered that they should read it. Most refused. But I'm going to keep banging the drum for this fascinating book.
