The Yiddish Policemen's Union
 First edition cover |
|
| Author | Michael Chabon |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Jacket design by Will Staehle |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Novel, alternate history, detective fiction |
| Publisher | |
| Publication date | May 1 2007 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Pages | 414 pp (first edition, hardcover) |
| ISBN | ISBN 978-0-00-714982-7 (first edition, hardcover) |
The Yiddish Policemen's Union is a 2007 novel by American author Michael Chabon. The novel is an alternate history detective story based on the premise that after World War II, a temporary Yiddish-speaking settlement for Jewish refugees was established in Alaska in 1941. It also incorporates the (fictional) destruction of the State of Israel in 1948 after an unsuccessful struggle for independence. It takes place in a fictionalized version of the real city of Sitka.
Setting
Although it initially seems as if this world's divergence point from our own was the establishment of Israel in 1948 as an independent state (or its collapse, in this world), it occurred earlier with the assassination of Anthony Dimond. Most tellingly, their USSR collapsed in 1942, so there are references to a prolonged World War II, which ended in the use of nuclear weapons against Berlin in 1946, instead of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945, as in our world. Moreover, there may have been records lost in the nuclear destruction of Berlin, or this world's Holocaust may have been less severe than our own, given citation of two million Jewish casualties in this book. Manchuria is referred to as if it were still independent of China, which suggests that it may still be a client state of the Japanese Empire, which may not have entered the Second World War in this world. In addition, there are also references to a "Polish Free State" in 1950, which implies the absence of a Warsaw Pact in this world, and a "Cuban War" in the early sixties, which implies that something like the Bay of Pigs occurred here as well.
Without Israel, Palestine is described as a mosaic of contending religious and secular nationalist groups locked in internecine conflict. An evangelical Christian US President believes in "divine sanction" for neo-Zionism, and may be about to broker a solution that will partially reverse the events of the alternate 1948.
Origins and writing
Chabon began working on the novel in February 2002,[1] inspired by an essay he had published in Harper's in October 1997. Entitled "Guidebook to a Land of Ghosts", the essay discussed a travel book Chabon had found, Say It in Yiddish, and the dearth of Yiddish-speaking countries in which the book would be useful. While researching hypothetical Yiddish-speaking countries, Chabon learned of "this proposal once that Jewish refugees be allowed to settle in Alaska during World War II… I made a passing reference to it in the essay, but the idea stuck."[2] Vitriolic public response to the essay, which was seen as controversial for "prematurely announcing [Yiddish's] demise," also spurred Chabon to develop the idea.[3]
In late 2003, Chabon mentioned the novel on his web site, saying that it was titled Hotzeplotz in a reference to the
"Yiddish expression 'from here to Hotzeplotz,' meaning more or less the back of nowhere, Podunk,
Iowa, the ends of the earth."[4] In 2004, Chabon
said the (retitled) book would be published in fall 2005,[5] but then the writer decided to trash his most recent draft and start over. His publisher
In December 2005, Chabon announced a second delay to the novel's release, claiming that the manuscript was complete but that he felt that HarperCollins was rushing the novel into publication.[6] An excerpt from the book appeared in the Fall 2006 issue of the Virginia Quarterly Review, and the novel itself was released on May 1, 2007. Chabon has said that the novel was difficult to write, calling it "an exercise in restraint all around… The sentences are much shorter than my typical sentences; my paragraphs are shorter than my typical paragraphs."[2] He also described the novel as an homage to the writing of mystery writers Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Ross Macdonald, along with Russian writer Isaac Babel.[2][3]
Reception
In the weeks leading up to its publication, Chabon's first full-length novel since
Initial critical reviews were positive, with Library Journal calling it "bloody brilliant"[9] and Michiko Kakutani writing in The New York Times that the novel "builds upon the achievement of Kavalier & Clay… a gripping murder mystery [with] one of the most appealing detective heroes to come along since Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe."[10] The novel debuted at #2 on the New York Times Best Seller list on May 20, 2007,[11] remaining on the list for 6 weeks.[12]
References
- ^ Chabon, Michael (January 2005). In the Works. www.michaelchabon.com. Archived from the original on 2005-02-04. Retrieved on 2007-05-01.
- ^ a b c Hodler, Timothy. "Michael Chabon Q&A", Details. Retrieved on 2007-05-01.
- ^ a b c Cohen, Patricia. "The Chosen Frozen" (fee required), The New York Times, 2007-04-29. Retrieved on 2007-05-01.
- ^ Chabon, Michael (November 2003). In the Works. www.michaelchabon.com. Archived from the original on 2004-02-02. Retrieved on 2007-05-01.
- ^ Chabon, Michael (July 2004). In the Works. www.michaelchabon.com. Archived from the original on 2005-07-22. Retrieved on 2007-05-01.
- ^ Chabon, Michael (December 2005). In the Works. www.michaelchabon.com. Archived from the original on 2006-05-29. Retrieved on 2007-05-01.
- ^ "Michael Chabon Heralds New Era in Arts & Leisure?", New York Magazine, 2007-04-30. Retrieved on 2007-05-01.
- ^ Johnson, Richard. "Page Six: NOVELIST'S UGLY VIEW OF JEWS", New York Post, 2007-04-22. Retrieved on 2007-05-01.
- ^ http://www.powells.com/biblio/9780007149827
- ^ Kakutani, Michiko. "Books of the Times: Looking for a Home in the Limbo of Alaska", The New York Times, 2007-05-01. Retrieved on 2007-05-01.
- ^ "Hardcover Fiction", The New York Times, 2007-05-20. Retrieved on [[2007-07-15.
- ^ "Hardcover Fiction", The New York Times, 2007-07-01. Retrieved on 2007-07-15.
External links
- Dissent magazine's interview with Chabon about The Yiddish Policemen's Union
- An Open Letters review of Chabon's career
- Hard-Boiled, Yiddish Style a review by Marc Alan Coen [1]
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