Reviews

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

tintagel's review against another edition

5.0

Michael Chabon's one of the only authors whose entire body of work I feel genuinely compelled to read. This one is great. A book about the state of a perpetually displaced culture set in an alternate history in the guise of a hard-boiled detective mystery.

It's refreshing to see an author of such immense talent embrace genre-writing.

sunrays118's review against another edition

1.0

The book is overwritten. The author is so caught up in his own love for himself and his style that he neglects the story. The prose is so overdone, overstated that it is impossible to read this book like a novel. The reader instead is forced to concentrate on the syntax, the word choice, the prolonged and tortured similies. There is no room left for character development or plot. This book was a huge miss for me. I found myself not following the story, not caring about the characters, and being bored silly by the author's writing.

Disappointing.

chaddah's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious medium-paced

3.5

bc_'s review against another edition

Slow, boring, unsympathetic main character. The fact that the reviews on the jacket of this book all talked about other books by the author should have told me this one wasn’t going to be worth the time. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Murder, and Suicidal thoughts

sarahlreadseverything's review against another edition

3.0

This book was hard work. Was it worth it? I'm still not sure. The sheer effort of wading through Chabon's combination of yiddish and english, his constant tense jumping and strange narrative style was exhausting and meant I interspaced the read with several others. On the other hand, the premise, especially it's alternate history (a world where the new state of Israel collapsed almost as soon as it began and an alternative semi-permanent Jewish settlement was built up in Alaska) is genius and well executed. A rich and ultimately believable alternate history is built. The characters are almost entirely unsympathetic, but you find yourself rooting for them anyway. Overall I think this is one of those books that although I won't have fond memories of it, I probably won't forget it.

I have no idea however, how it won as many awards as it did. I think that it is probably more a testament to the weight the authors name carries, than the weight of the book itself.

danimeyer1799's review against another edition

mysterious tense slow-paced

2.75

did not love this. don't really like the writing style and the characters rang rather flat for me. the mystery also did not really suck me in and I found myself vaguely confused throughout the story.

loujoseph's review against another edition

3.0

not really excited to actually read this- some passages were amazing, but overall it felt a little all over the place. seemed like it could be condensed so when i heard the coen brothers were working on this it made a lot of sense.

leah_alexandra's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

4.0

This was a darkly fun, and at times, thrilling read. I don’t typically read detective novels, and it took me a few chapters to get into, but once I did, I really enjoyed this one. The alternative history and incorporation of Jewish/Yiddish culture/s made it particularly interesting. 

samkie's review

dark emotional funny lighthearted mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes

4.5

aberdeenwaters's review against another edition

4.0

I enjoyed the setting and alternative history in which Chabon set this detective story. Had to use the Yiddish glossary a lot, but I didn't mind.