A Cop, an Eskimo, and the Messiah walk into a bar: The Yiddish Policeman's Union

There are times when you can, in fact, judge a book by its cover. When you pick up a fantasy or sci-fi published after 1995 or so whose cover looks like bad Xena fan art, it's going to be pretty rare that what's on the inside doesn't read like bad Xena fan fic. Conversely, a closer look at the cover of Steve Lawhead's Scarlet shows the title lettering made to look like hammered metal, as one would see on an old arrowhead, and that genius detail laid over a standard image of a hangman's noose foreshadows this fantastic story's twists and improvements on the familiar Robin Hood myth. What got me to pick up Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union was not the cover art, however, but the title itself. I mean, look at it! How could you resist?

Set in current times, The Yiddish Policeman's Union is an alternate history wherein the newborn state of Israel was destroyed three months after its creation, and the average developed nation is still doing everything it can to keep Jews off its soil. The only place they're allowed to have a large settlement is in the Alaskan wilderness, in a place no one but another undesirable people group wants. However, this settlement isn't permanent: appeals for statehood have been rejected, and as our story opens the Sitka district will be reverting to American property in three months, its residents mostly displaced. It is amongst this backdrop that worn out, alcoholic, suicidal homicide detective Meyer Landsman gets a late-night call for a death at the seedy hotel he lives in. What appears to be a drug-related suicide is, of course, no suicide at all, and ties to his past (and other factors) draw Meyer and his converted Inuit partner Berko Shemets into a case no one wants them to touch. Toss guilt, envy, ex-wives, a Messiah prophecy, and the Jewish religious mafia into the mix, and out of the blender comes a book that is as pleasurable to read as it is tough.

The story is interesting, and a strong commentary on the consequences of the choices people make when they believe they have no choice. What really sets The Yiddish Policeman's Union apart, though, is the writing. Michael Chabon is an anomaly, a writer who uses his large vocabulary freely yet without pretension. It's unlikely there are any words in there you won't recognize - he just uses lots of them, in good variety, and to great effect. It's no surprise, then, that he's also great at turning a phrase, and his descriptions flutter back and forth between acutely hilarious and acutely heart-wrenching. On top of that, this book is written in third-person present tense ("Meyer walks into the room and sits down" instead of "Meyer walked into the room and sat down"), a mode I've never before seen successful. It should have felt strange, but in Chabon's hands, this unusual style flows as normally as his words.

If you pick up this book because you noticed it won a Hugo and was shortlisted for the BSFA, you may be disappointed. Alternate history is not science fiction, and as there's no unusual or different technological aspect to the items character here use in their everyday lives, I really can't see how it qualified for the award. The Yiddish Policeman's Union is not a sci-fi, but it is one of the best novels you'll likely ever read. As I was reading it, I thought to myself, "I'd like to see this made into a movie by the Coen brothers." Well, guess who already had that idea? It should be out in the next couple of years, and it's one of the only adaptations I've ever looked forward to.