At the recommendation of a coworker, I picked up The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon, and I, who am usually a slow reader, flew through the novel. It’s a crime novel and a psychological thriller, while also containing a rich history and vocabulary that immerses you with Jewish exiles, while placing you in the run-down, backwoods world of Sitka, Alaska.
Initially, the novel opens with some wandering exposition about the characters and world that leaves the reader wondering where Chabon is going to take you, but feeling like that twist is lurking under the nearest manhole. While slow at times, understanding the Jewish world that Meyer Landsman, our hero, lives in is critical. Landsman, a divorced social outcast, is struggling to reconcile the existential fate of his race with his own personal fate creating a kind of tension that, while intensely personal, feels universal.
With this tension building in the seedy underbelly of Landsman’s gut, Chabon launches us, almost out of nowhere, into the middle of much bigger scheme. I won’t spoil anything because ultimately my goal here is not to write a comprehensive book review. My goal here is to zero in and talk about the genre and trope of the detective novel, and how Chabon manipulates that genre to give us something truly special.
If you’re like me, then you might’ve viewed the detective story as a somewhat shallow genre that was geared more towards pure entertainment and thrill than any kind of serious investigation of the human condition or philosophical merit. If you didn’t have that view then you’re a much smarter person than I and give yourself a pat on the back! That isn’t to say that detective novels aren’t fantastic, but the whodunit trope is very easily played out.
However, what I expected when I opened the novel was far from what I got. I was subtly seduced by the complexity of the conspiracy and also the necessity to understand the conspirators motives. Chabon does a great job of building up a world and a lore early so that when those characters, the supposed ‘villains’, enter the fray they don’t feel nearly as sinister as you would imagine. Almost like if your next door neighbor turned out to be a serial killer—that would be almost unbelievable since you know that person in such a disarming and ‘normal’ way.
Chabon then uses his detective to unravel the conspiracy, but in a way it feels like Landsman is doing this despite of himself. Sure he is incompetent at times, but the scheme almost has an inevitability about it. A favorite show of mine True Detective: Season 1 also contains a detective and a massive conspiracy, but unlike this novel the detectives unravel it through painstaking process. This conspiracy almost unravels before he can even investigate it. In other detective stories it feels like the detective is actively peeling back the layers of the scheme—like if the detective didn’t do his job then the scheme might not ever exist. In this story though, the conspiracy comes to pass while Landsman is unconscious or about to give up. Sure, he takes initiative and performs acts of heroism, but by in large the conspiracy feels like a living, breathing force that drives Landsman instead of the other way around.
This nuance elevates the novel above the common detective trope through the lack of control that it gives Landsman. Not every moment is a Landsman scene where he’s determining the next move in the plot, instead some of the episodes are devoid of him entirely. This instills the novel with a sense of ‘bigness.’ The world is not simply the reader or Landsman’s mind, but is actively trying to foil the wishes and desires of the reader and main (and good) characters. It takes the framework of a detective novel, but doesn’t concern itself with just the detective. This fills out the world of Sitka with little details about donuts and chess so that those things feel vitally important as well.
In my opinion this is what makes the novel superior to other’s of the same ilk. It’s also what we can take away from it—that there are other forces at work in the world, some good some bad, and whether we like it or not those forces are powerful and will not stop. Realizing this frees one of a kind of insulated and self-centered perspective and actually enables the person to work better within the grand scheme of the world.
Landsman often quips that its a strange time to a Jew, which is certainly true in the novel, but its also just a strange time for all of us. Hopefully, some of you will find enjoyment and encouragement in the Yiddish Policeman’s Union!
Weekly Question:
What’s your favorite detective story?
I loved that book, and was astonished at how fast I read through it! Chabon is one of those writers I never tire of reading.
LOVED that book when I read it years ago. I think I'll have to pick it up again.