/ Key title The brilliantly original new novel from Michael Chabon, author of 'The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay' and 'The Final Solution'. / The long-awaited large scale new novel from the Pulizter prize-winning author Michael Chabon. / What if Alaska -- rather than Israel -- had become the homeland of the Jewish nation after World War II? 'The Yiddish Policemen's Union' ambitiously explores the possible outcome. / 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay' has sold in excess of 44,000 copies to date in the UK. / Guaranteed massive feature and review coverage on publication. / Michael Chabon will in the in UK to publicise the book and will attend signings and events. / Competition: Robert Harris (ENIGMA)
Michael Chabon is the author of two collections of short stories, ‘A Model World’ and ‘Werewolves in their Youth’, the novels ‘The Mysteries of Pittsburgh’, ‘Wonder Boys’, ‘The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay’, ‘The Yiddish Policemen’s Union’ and ‘Telegraph Avenue’, and the non-fiction books ‘Maps and Legends and Manhood for Amateurs’. ‘Wonder Boys’ has been made into a film starring Michael Douglas and Robert Downey Jr. and ‘The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay’ won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His short stories have appeared in the New Yorker, GQ, Esquire and Playboy. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife and their four children.
Praise for ‘The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay’: ‘An adventure story that keeps you up until 4am with the bedside lamp on, eager to learn if the Escapist, and Chabon himself, can free the enslaved and lead them home.’ Observer ‘Proof of the abiding power of complex, serious, engaged, but above all entertaining story-telling.’ Times Literary Supplement ‘A page-turning epic, sketching World War II as seen through the eyes of two comic book writers.’ Time Out ‘A novel of towering achievement.’ New York Times ‘Absolutely gosh-wow, super-colossal.’ Washington Post
Praise for 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay':
'An adventure story that keeps you up until 4am with the bedside lamp on, eager to learn if the Escapist, and Chabon himself, can free the enslaved and lead them home.' Observer
'Proof of the abiding power of complex, serious, engaged, but above all entertaining story-telling.' Times Literary Supplement
'A page-turning epic, sketching World War II as seen through the eyes of two comic book writers.' Time Out
'A novel of towering achievement.' New York Times
'Absolutely gosh-wow, super-colossal.' Washington Post
They are the "frozen Chosen," two million people living, dying and kvetching in Sitka, Alaska, the temporary homeland established for displaced World War II Jews in Chabon's ambitious and entertaining new novel. It is-deep breath now-a murder-mystery speculative-history Jewish-identity noir chess thriller, so perhaps it's no surprise that, in the back half of the book, the moving parts become unwieldy; Chabon is juggling narrative chainsaws here. The novel begins-the same way that Philip Roth launched The Plot Against America-with a fascinating historical footnote: what if, as Franklin Roosevelt proposed on the eve of World War II, a temporary Jewish settlement had been established on the Alaska panhandle? Roosevelt's plan went nowhere, but Chabon runs the idea into the present, back-loading his tale with a haunting history. Israel failed to get a foothold in the Middle East, and since the Sitka solution was only temporary, Alaskan Jews are about to lose their cold homeland. The book's timeless refrain: "It's a strange time to be a Jew." Into this world arrives Chabon's Chandler-ready hero, Meyer Landsman, a drunken rogue cop who wakes in a flophouse to find that one of his neighbors has been murdered. With his half-Tlingit, half-Jewish partner and his sexy-tough boss, who happens also to be his ex-wife, Landsman investigates a fascinating underworld of Orthodox black-hat gangs and crime-lord rabbis. Chabon's "Alyeska" is an act of fearless imagination, more evidence of the soaring talent of his previous genre-blender, the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Eventually, however, Chabon's homage to noir feels heavy-handed, with too many scenes of snappy tough-guy banter and too much of the kind of elaborate thriller plotting that requires long explanations and offscreen conspiracies. Chabon can certainly write noir-or whatever else he wants; his recent Sherlock Holmes novel, The Final Solution, was lovely, even if the New York Times Book Review sniffed its surprise that the mystery novel would "appeal to the real writer." Should any other snobs mistake Chabon for anything less than a real writer, this book offers new evidence of his peerless storytelling and style. Characters have skin "as pale as a page of commentary" and rough voices "like an onion rolling in a bucket." It's a solid performance that would have been even better with a little more Yiddish and a little less police. (May) Jess Walter was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Award for The Zero and the winner of the 2006 Edgar Award for best novel for Citizen Vince. Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.
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