The Yiddish Policemen's Union

Michael Chabon
The Yiddish Policemen's Union Cover

A detective story

spectru
2/22/2016
Email

I read The Yiddish Policemen's Union because it had the recommendation of having won the Hugo and the Nebula awards behind it. It also won or was nominated for other science fiction awards. But guess what - It's not a science fiction novel. It's a detective story.

It's not a science fiction novel. If anything it's history fiction, but I guess that's what earns it its science fiction stripes. In this story Sitka, Alaska, is the Jewish homeland, the allies dropped an atomic bomb on Germany in 1946, the Jews were pushed out of Israel in 1948, and there was a war with Cuba. Other than that, things are pretty much as we know them. Technology is no different due to this altered history. It could have just as well taken place in New York, or Tel Aviv without the changed history. There is no science fiction in this novel.

It's very Jewish. Yiddish. Thankfully for a reader like me, whose only knowledge of Jewish culture comes from Jerry Seinfeld and Jon Stewart, there is a glossary in the back.

It really drags in the beginning. About a third or halfway through, Detective Meyer Landsman gets wounded and kills two in a shootout. That's when it finally picks up. I'm not a big reader of detective stories, but I've read better than this. It was just alright. I can't imagine how it won all those science fiction awards. Meh.

http://www.buckward.net