By Kari Heil
See if this passage piques your interest: “Landsman parks the Super Sport in the spot behind the Dumpsters that he has come to view as his own, though he supposes a man should not come to cherish tender feelings toward a parking place. Simply having a place to put his car that is twenty-four stories down from a standing invitation to breakfast should never pass, in a man’s heart, for a homecoming” (p. 36). Home, having a place in the world, is a big issue in The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (2007) by Michael Chabon. His main character, Meyer Landsman, seems pretty pitiful here, in a funny, self-deprecating way, and he definitely is in many respects. This description of him parking his car while looking for his home alludes to Landsman’s touching and grounding relationship with his cousin and fellow policeman who lives in the nearby high-rise. The search for belonging rests at the heart of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, and this early passage is full of the kind of poignant, understated, ironic humor that makes this book really special.
I don’t know why I didn’t see it the first time I picked it up. I’ve loved everything else I’ve read by Chabon, so I was excited to dive into his newest novel, expecting it to be full of cleverness and inventiveness and great writing. But when I started the book two years ago, I just couldn’t get past the first couple of chapters. That hardly ever happens to me, and I’m not sure why I couldn’t hack it; but I put down the book and left it on the shelf collecting dust until this fall. When I picked up The Yiddish Policemen’s Union for a second try, starting again on page one, I was swept away by the unusual combination of a detective story with noir-ish atmosphere, a wacky, fully developed, alternative history, hysterical descriptions and word play, and sensitive treatment of characters. This time I found that the book was well worth the effort: I enjoyed every bit of it. It’s a tough read at first, but the payoff is big if you can last through the necessary adjustment to Chabon’s challenging vocabulary and style. In fact, the Yiddish usage – some of it legit and some (I’m pretty sure) invented – scattered throughout really lends the book great flavor and fun.
The story takes place in a fictional independent Jewish settlement in southern Alaska in the year 2000. Weird, right? But try to give Chabon the benefit of the doubt and keep chewing, even if the premise seems really hard to swallow at first. In Chabon’s alternate version of history, during WWII, European Jews were resettled in the Federal District of Sitka and have built up a bustling metropolis and sub-culture; but the territory is scheduled to revert to US control at the end of the year, and its two million Jewish residents will have to find other places to live unless they’re granted special permission to stay. Chabon does such a great job creating this place that I completely bought into it (the second time around, that is) and could picture it very vividly, with all five senses involved in building the mental picture. The snow, the cold, the urban grit, the smell of wet wool, the sound of an old man’s scratchy smoker’s voice. Even the taste of a “Filipino-style Chinese donut, or shtekeleh . . . the great contribution of the District of Sitka to the food lovers of the world” (p. 172).
Surrounded by a thrum of mild panic about the imminent reversion of the settlement, Landsman and Berko Shemets, Landsman’s half-Tlingit cousin and his partner in the homicide division, investigate the murder of a meth addict who lived in the same run-down hotel as Landsman. Landsman seems like a kind of pathetic hero; he has lost his faith in everything and has been in a bit of a self-destructive tailspin since his divorce two years earlier. He’s down on his luck and kind of a wreck, physically and emotionally, but he has flashes of bravery and glory that make him a true hero, in the end. It turns out the dead guy is not who he said he was; he actually was Mendel Shpilman, the son of a prominent and very powerful rabbi, the leader of a conservative sect that seems to run a little bit like the mafia. The dead guy, Shpilman, also was something of a chess genius and apparently a miracle healer in his youth, supposed by many of the faithful to be the Tzaddik ha-Dor, the one pure soul born in a generation, a potential messiah.
In the course of trying to solve this complicated case, Landsman and Berko uncover a plot involving the US government and a Jewish paramilitary group that plans to destroy the Dome on the Rock, thus allowing a new temple to be built, Israel to come under Jewish control, and the Messiah to return to earth, ultimately. This stuff is a bit kooky, yes, but it works fairly well in Chabon’s intricate plot development. Chabon is toying with serious social and political commentary here, but nothing of this sort actually ever surfaces in the novel – thank goodness. The intimation of cultural critique doesn’t intrude on the progress of the story or the development of the characters, and it certainly doesn’t mute the truly remarkable and often poetic prose that shapes the novel’s Sitka and its inhabitants.
Landsman’s involvement in one last murder case before the Sitka police department is disbanded is interwoven with the restoration of his relationship with his ex-wife, Bina Gelbfish. Bina happens to have recently become his supervisor in the Sitka homicide division and has helped him out of tight spots with criminals and government officials while working the Shpilman case. At the novel’s close, readers are left with some hope about the chances of finding a place to belong after being forced out of the only home you’ve ever known – when you’re with someone who knows you and loves you anyway. While being interviewed by FBI agents, Landsman says, “My homeland is in my hat. It’s in my ex-wife’s tote bag” (p. 368). Things are looking up for Landsman, even though he’s probably leaving Sitka, even though the powers that be are quite possibly destroying the world. And that’s strangely comforting, after all the intrigue.
For the Kiddos
I am totally charmed by the book Fair Monaco (2003) by Brock Cole. I think I like it better than my kids do, but they sometimes let me read it to them if I promise not to get weepy at the end. In this book of lovely, soft watercolor paintings, Maggie, Kate, and Nora’s mother is ill, their father absent. So the three sisters (big, medium, and small) find themselves on Granny’s doorstep in what seems to be a littered, neglected, possibly dangerous inner-city neighborhood. Granny can’t remember her youthful adventures and can’t be bothered to tell the girls any fanciful tales because her mind is too full of worries and fears and bitterness. But the girls manage to turn Granny’s dark view of the world on its head and re-imagine a potentially scary environment as a welcoming place. In the end, they even help tired, grouchy Granny see good in the people around her. After a boring night stuck inside the apartment with nothing to do, the girls will themselves to escape into pleasant, bright dreams. When they wake in Granny’s bed instead of their own, they find that she’s been with them on their magical night-flight and has been transformed, along with the neighborhood. They’ll all enjoy pancakes for breakfast, instead of fretting about “bad boys” and nasty bill collectors. Now the people on the street below the apartment no longer seem menacing; it is a street bustling with positive activity. The world has been made a better place by the girls’ love of life, by their hope and optimism, in spite of difficult circumstances.
