The Yiddish Policemen's Union

Paperback, 552 pages

English language

Published April 8, 2008 by W F Howes.

ISBN:
978-1-4074-1384-6
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OCLC Number:
258061876

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4 stars (6 reviews)

What if - as Franklin Roosevelt once proposed - Alaska, not Israel, had become the homeland for the Jews after World War II? In Michael Chabon's Yiddish-speaking 'Alyeska', Detective Meyer Landsman discovers the corpse of a heroin-addled chess prodigy. Suspicion falls upon Rebbe Gold, leader of a secretive sect. But behind Rebbe looms an even larger shadow. Meyer is determined to unsnarl the meaning behind the murder. Even if that means surrendering his badge and his dignity to the chief of Sitka's homicide unit - also known as his fearsome ex-wife.

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3 stars

Pribeh se sice odehrava v alternativni casove linii, kdy Amerika prijala Zidy ve velkym na Aljasce, ale jinak je to spis detektivka. Zapletka v posledni tretine dost graduje a vlastne me zaujala. Knizka zpocatku trpela zbytecne okridlenym jazykem, casem si to sedlo.

Jako ok, ale znovu bych si to nedal.

It's more of detective story despite placed in alternative timeline where jews fled to Alaska. I've had hard times to cope with the superfluous language/too many words at beginning, but it calmed down a little after some hundred pages.

Not bad, not fantastic, read & forget.

Review of "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Many people seem to enjoy Michael Chabon’s books so I was pleased when I finally had a reason to read The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. In the dark Alaskan winter in the city of Sitka; Detective Meyer Landsman’s ex-wife has just become his boss and has handing him a huge stack of old cold cases that she wants him to solve. While Landsman life may feel like its already hit rock bottom, he’s only just discovering the mess that he’s in; a mess that will lead to a conspiracy.

This alternative verson of Sitka, Alaska in this book is a Yiddish-speaking metropolis. That was the whole basis of this book; Michael Chabon’s idea came from a book he found called 'Say It in Yiddish' which had sayings that he would never have a chance to use because Yiddish isn't the primary language of any country. While toying with the idea of …

Review of "Yiddish Policemen's Union" on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Nine months Landsman's been flopping at the Hotel Zamenhof without any of his fellow residents managing to get themselves murdered. Now somebody has put a bullet in the brain of the occupant of 208, a yid who was calling himself Emanuel Lasker.

Michael Chabon's latest novel, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, at first seems to be simply a homage to the 1940's detective story, and that is certainly the backbone characteristic of this story, but it is also written in an alternative future and is richly embellished with Jewish cultures and the intricacies of chess. One reviewer at Publisher's Weekly called this book "a
murder-mystery speculative-history Jewish-identity noir chess thriller." Right. That's exactly what it is.

Chabon imagines what would have been if Franklin Roosevelt's proposal to establish a temporary Jewish settlement on the Alaskan panhandle had been carried out. The talented author calls this place Sitka, and populates it with …

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Subjects

  • Drug addicts
  • Murder
  • Investigation
  • Jews
  • Crimes against
  • Fiction

Places

  • Alaska