You'll find Michael Chabon's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, on many recommended reading lists. It is certainly one of the best books that I've read in the past decade. Kavalier and Clay has compelling, page-turning ingredients--engaging characters (two boys who make good on their dream to become comic book authors); a common but winning theme (justice for the weak); dashes of fantasy (the Golem of Prague); and enough melancholy to imbed Chabon's tale in your head and heart long after you finish reading it.
Chabon may have one-upped his own masterpiece with his newest book, The Yiddish Policemen's Union. In this new novel, Chabon makes a foray into history--alternative history, to be precise. As the L.A. Times describes the premise for the book,
What if, as Franklin Roosevelt once suggested, a safe zone had been established in Alaska under the protection of the United States for European Jews escaping Hitler? What if this "Federal District of Sitka" had grown and developed until its population was in the millions, a country within a country, as it were? What if Israel had collapsed in 1948, mere months after independence, leaving many Jews with nowhere else to turn?
And what if, 60 years later, Sitka was about to face a process called "reversion," in which its territories would be returned and its Jews cast back into the Diaspora, a Diaspora in which the desirability of their presence was not entirely assured?
If this isn't enough to pique your interest, consider that the primary storyline is a noirish detective tale in which a Sitka police detective, under the supervision of his ex-wife (his superior officer), investigates the murder of the junkie son of a prominent rabbi.
I can't wait to get my hands on this book.
More on the book from the New York Times Book Review.
Read the rest of the L.A. Times review.
UPDATE: Michael Chabon discusses the book with Jewish culture website Nextbook [mp3 file].
4 comments:
Hearing all this talk of the new Chabon release makes me a little sad… A year ago, I would have been thrilled and probably obtained an advanced reading copy. He’s been my “favorite” author since I first read his debut novel THE MYSTERIES OF PITTSBURGH back in the early 90s.
But I can no longer support the work of an author who has no regard for the story and characters that put him on the literary map.
In case you haven’t heard, there’s a film version of MOP coming out later this year… Written and directed by the guy who brought us DODGEBALL, in which he’s CHANGED 85% of Chabon’s original story.
And the sad part is… Michael Chabon himself APPROVED of the script!
WHY would he do this? I can only think of one possible answer: $$
If you are a Chabon fan, esp MOP, I suggest you do NOT see this movie. You will be sadly disappointed at the COMPLETE removal of the gay character, Arthur Lecomte, and the fabrication of a romantic love triangle between Art Bechstein, Jane Bellwether, and a bi-sexual Cleveland Arning. And really, what is MOP without the presence of Phlox Lombardi? Alas, she’s barely in it.
Sure he's doing it because of $$. That, however, doesn't diminish my appreciation of his books.
I picked up Kavalier & Clay a couple of days ago on your advice.
I'll be interested to hear what you think about it. Despite the near universal praise for the book, it's not a book for everyone. I love it because I love books with richly drawn characters. Joe Kavalier and Sammy Clay are certainly two of the most complex characters I've read about in a long time. In addition, I like the way that Chabon is able to meld genres effectively.
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