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Littlest Sister got me The Yiddish Policemen's Union for Christmas, with the subtle hint that if I didn't want it she would gladly read it. The book won the Hugo last year, and I'm generally a fan of Chabon, so it's been on my list for some time.
It's an alternate history where Sitka, Alaska, has become, provisionally, the home for a great number of Jewish refugees, most of whom have nowhere else to go, since it's almost impossible for Jewish people to get a passport elsewhere (even the contintental US, even Juneau or Fairbanks) unless they have a close relative already living there. But, after sixty years, Sitka is about to revert to US control, and the people of Sitka are nervous about what will happen to them, amidst rumors that only 40% or so are going to be able to get Green Cards. One of the reasons Chabon is a genius is that he can develop this alternate Sitka in such detail, such clarity, such cleverness, while at the same time writing a hard-boiled-ish murder mystery and an intense human drama.
That's marvelous, isn't it? First that smile of recognition, for anyone who's lived in a city that has some expensive eyesore constructed for a World's Fair or an Olympics, which has some lofty proper name but the city has its own deprecating term of endearment for it. And then you see what's going on deeper: the Promise of Sanctuary, given to the Jewish refugees, has turned out to be something as temporary, as provisional, as the safety pin used to mend a hem that's come undone.
It's an alternate history where Sitka, Alaska, has become, provisionally, the home for a great number of Jewish refugees, most of whom have nowhere else to go, since it's almost impossible for Jewish people to get a passport elsewhere (even the contintental US, even Juneau or Fairbanks) unless they have a close relative already living there. But, after sixty years, Sitka is about to revert to US control, and the people of Sitka are nervous about what will happen to them, amidst rumors that only 40% or so are going to be able to get Green Cards. One of the reasons Chabon is a genius is that he can develop this alternate Sitka in such detail, such clarity, such cleverness, while at the same time writing a hard-boiled-ish murder mystery and an intense human drama.
He climbs out and smokes a papiros in the rain. He turns his eyes north, across the marina, to the looping aluminum spike on its windswept island. Once more he feels a sharp nostalgia for the fair, for the heroic Jewish engineering of the Safety Pin (officially the Promise of Sanctuary Tower, but nobody calls it that), and for the cleavage of the uniformed lady who used to tear your ticket on the elevator ride to the restaurant at the Safety Pin's tip.
That's marvelous, isn't it? First that smile of recognition, for anyone who's lived in a city that has some expensive eyesore constructed for a World's Fair or an Olympics, which has some lofty proper name but the city has its own deprecating term of endearment for it. And then you see what's going on deeper: the Promise of Sanctuary, given to the Jewish refugees, has turned out to be something as temporary, as provisional, as the safety pin used to mend a hem that's come undone.