Stuart's Reviews > The Yiddish Policemen's Union

The Yiddish Policemen's Union: Larger-than life characters overwhelm noir plot
Originally posted at Fantasy Literature
I knew I would eventually get around to this book. How can one resist? An alternate history about the US resettling European Jews to Alaska to escape the Holocaust, in a world in which Germany defeated the Soviet Union, Berlin was destroyed by nuclear weapons in 1946, and Israel was destroyed in 1948 in a different version of the Arab-Israeli War. Michael Chabon uses this setting for a hard-boiled detective noir story inspired by the works of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Ross Macdonald, and adds the most colorful, ironic, and over-the-top narrative voice I’ve read in years. The audiobook is narrated expertly by actor Peter Riegert, who grew up in a Jewish neighborhood outside New York and whose resume includes two years on The Sopranos. He handles the colorful literary chutzpah of Chabon’s prose without embellishment and with cool competence.

Chabon revels in all aspects of Jewish culture, both what can be viewed as stereotypes or treasured cultural traits, along with classic detective noir, alcoholic self-destructive cops, sinister and yet comical mob bosses, chess geniuses that may also be the Messiah, Native American tribes, and the cold inhospitable backdrop of the Alaskan coastline itself. It’s a very eclectic and enticing stew with different flavors battling for supremacy, and for that reason will not be to everyone’s taste, but nobody would deny is unique and memorable. There is also a copious amount of Yiddish terms that add yet another layer of flavors to an already heady concoction, so have your web glossary handy.

I won’t describe the plot in detail since others have done that already. Rather, I’d like to include some of my favorite quotes from the book, because they are frankly what gives the book its character, rather than the plot itself. In fact, while I really liked the writing most of the time, it sometimes completely overwhelmed the story. Strip out the colorful, larger-than-life character descriptions and alternate history backdrop, and the noir mystery isn’t really that memorable. So the charm is in the telling, and as far as that goes, Chabon certainly doesn’t hold back. Whether you find it incredibly brilliant, charming but overbearing, or just too much really depends on your literary preferences. I felt all three at times, so I gave it 3 stars overall. Here are some memorable passages that will help you decide if this book is for you.

The main character, detective Meyer Landsman:

“He has the memory of a convict, the balls of a fireman, and the eyesight of a housebreaker. When there is crime to fight, Landsman tears around Sitka like a man with his pant leg caught on a rocket. It's like there's a film score playing behind him, heavy on the castanets. The problem comes in the hours when he isn't working, when his thoughts start blowing out the open window of his brain like pages from the blotter. Sometimes it takes a heavy paperweight to pin them down.”

Landsman’s estranged ex-wife and fellow detective, Bina Gelbfish:

“You have to look at Jews like Bina Gelbfish, to explain the wide range and persistence of the race. Jews who carry their homes in an old cowhide bag, on the back of a camel, in the bubble of air at the center of their brains. Jews who land on their feet, hit the ground running, ride out the vicissitudes, and make the best of what falls to hand, from Egypt to Babylon, from Minsk Gubernya to the district of Sitka. Methodological, organised, persistent, resourceful, prepared... A mere re-drawing of borders, a change in governments, those things can never faze a Jewess with a good supply of hand wipes in her bag.”

The most powerful mob boss in Sitka, Alaska:

Rabbi Heskel Shpilman is a deformed mountain, a giant ruined desert, a cartoon house with the windows shut and the sink left running. A little kid lumped him together, a mob of kids, blind orphans who never laid eyes on a man. They clumped the dough of his arms and legs to the dough of his body, then jammed his head down on top. A millionaire could cover a Rolls-Royce with the fine black silk-and-velvet expanse of the rebbe’s frock coat and trousers. It would require the brain strength of the eighteen greatest sages in history to reason through the arguments against and in favor of classifying the rebbe’s massive bottom as either a creature of the deep, a man-made structure, or an unavoidable act of God.

Some hard-boiled noir description of a greasy spoon in town:

The hidden master of the Filipino-style Chinese donut is Benito Taganes, proprietor and king of the bubbling vats at Mabuhay. Mabuhay, dark, cramped, invisible from the street, stays open all night long. It drains the bars and cafes after hours, concentrates the wicked and the guilty along its chipped Formica counter, and thrums with the gossip of criminals, policemen, shtarkers and shlemiels, whores and night owls. With the fat applauding in the fryers, the exhaust fans roaring, and the boom box blasting the heartsick kundimans of Benito’s Manila childhood, the clientele makes free with their secrets. A golden mist of kosher oil hangs in the air and baffles the senses. Who could overhear with ears full of KosherFry and the wailing of Diomedes Maturan?

On the Messiah:

“But there was always a shortfall, wasn't there? Between the match that the Holy One, blessed be He, envisioned and the reality of the situation under the chuppah. Between commandment and observance, heaven and earth, husband and wife, Zion and Jew. They called that shortfall 'the world.' Only when Messiah came would the breach be closed, all separations, distinctions, and distances collapsed. Until then, thanks be unto His Name, sparks, bright sparks, might leap across the gap, as between electric poles. And we must be grateful for their momentary light.”