I really liked Chabon’s Cavalier and Klay, although I criticized it a little for its boisterousness. But now having read The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, I think I better understand that the whimsy and almost unbelievably absurity I sensed are just Chabon’s style. I certainly appreciated the style this time around. Chabon’s language is humble but incredibly visual and often zany, and the premise of this novel is just great: What if after WWII, the Jews set up their new homeland in Alaska instead of Israel, as was once proposed? In this alternate reality, Meyer Landsman is your hyper-stereotypical hard boiled detective working for the YPU, trying to solve the murder of one Mendel Shpilman. Mendel, it turns out, is the son of a powerful mobster rabbi and is rumored to be the savior returned to Earth. (See what I mean about semi-unbelievable absurity?)

[E]ven as a kid, Mendel Shpilman seemed to intuit the messy flow that both powered the Law and required its elaborate system of drains and sluices. Fear, doubt, lust, dishonesty, broken vows, murder and love, uncertainty about the intentions of God and men, little Mendel saw all of that not only in the Aramaic abstract but when it appeared in his father’s study, clothed in the dark surge and juicy mother tongue of everyday life.

After his death, all hell breaks loose for Landsman and his investigation snowballs into one clue or adventure after another.

Mendel’s funeral:

For an instant the crowd, the afternoon, the whole wide world of Jews breaths in and forgets to breathe out again. After that it’s madness, a Jewish riot, at once violent and verbal, fat with intemperate accusations and implacable curses. Skin diseases are called down, damnations and hemorrhages. Yelling, surging black hats, sticks and fists, shouting and screaming, beards fluttering like crusander flags, swearing, the smell of churning mud, of blood and ironed trousers.

(I just love that at the end, the ironed trousers.)

It’s certainly over the top. I understand that Chabon is being playful with this alternate history and I appreciate that. However, there were points where I thought maybe he’d gone a bit too far, especially in regards to the detective stereotyping. The hard drinking, divorced, go-with-his-gut, insubordinate yet gifted detective is oh so familiar, and there were points where I felt like he was relying on that too heavily at the expense of the character and the story. But on the whole this was a really good read, one I’d recommend as heartily as Cavalier and Klay.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars – Buy the hardcover