SUMMARY: This brilliant epic novel set in New York and Prague introduces us to two misfit young men who make it big by creating comic-book superheroes. Joe Kavalier, a young artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdiniesque escape, has just smuggled himself out of Nazi-invaded Prague and landed in New York City. His Brooklyn cousin Sammy Clay is looking for a partner to create heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit America the comic book. Inspired by their own fears and dreams, Kavalier and Clay create the Escapists, The Monitor, and Luna Moth, inspired by the beautiful Rosa Saks, who will become linked by powerful ties to both men.

SUMMARY: This brilliant epic novel set in New York and Prague introduces us to two misfit young men who make it big by creating comic-book superheroes. Joe Kavalier, a young artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdiniesque escape, has just smuggled himself out of Nazi-invaded Prague and landed in New York City. His Brooklyn cousin Sammy Clay is looking for a partner to create heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit America the comic book. Inspired by their own fears and dreams, Kavalier and Clay create the Escapists, The Monitor, and Luna Moth, inspired by the beautiful Rosa Saks, who will become linked by powerful ties to both men.

From Publishers Weekly

[Signature]Reviewed by Jess WalterThey 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.
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From Bookmarks Magazine

Does The Yiddish Policemen's Union live up to Michael Chabon's formidable reputation? There is no consensus: some critics called the novel the spiritual heir to the Pulitzer Prize?winning Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000); others thought it a disappointing aberration. As in Kavalier & Clay, Chabon explores issues of identity, assimilation, and mass culture, but he also pays homage to the noir detective novel—with mixed results. The New York Times called Landsman "one of the most appealing detective heroes to come along since Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe," while the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette felt that the work "came nowhere close to making the cut of a Raymond Chandler novel." Critics similarly disagreed about the writing, the convoluted plot, the symbolism of the Jewish-Native American conflict, and the controversial use of Yiddish slurs and caricatures. If not a glowing success, The Yiddish Policemen's Union nonetheless illustrates the rare talents and creativity of its author.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

El sindicato de policía yiddish

In the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, prose magician Michael Chabon conjured up the golden age of comic books – intertwining history, legend, and storytelling verve. In The Final Solution, he has condensed his boundless vision to craft a short, suspenseful tale of compassion and wit that reimagines the classic nineteenth-century detective story.

In deep retirement in the English country-side, an eighty-nine-year-old man, vaguely recollected by locals as a once-famous detective, is more concerned with his beekeeping than with his fellow man. Into his life wanders Linus Steinman, nine years old and mute, who has escaped from Nazi Germany with his sole companion: an African gray parrot. What is the meaning of the mysterious strings of German numbers the bird spews out – a top-secret SS code? The keys to a series of Swiss bank accounts perhaps? Or something more sinister? Is the solution to this last case – the real explanation of the mysterious boy and his parrot – beyond even the reach of the once-famed sleuth?

Subtle revelations lead the reader to a wrenching resolution. This brilliant homage, which won the 2004 Aga Khan Prize for fiction, is the work of a master storyteller at the height of his powers.

A story of adolescence and of the dawning realization that childhood is a country you can never return to.

Der 89-jährige Sherlock Holmes, von dem die Dorfbewohner zu wissen glauben, dass er einst ein berühmter Detektiv war, wohnt zurückgezogen in der englischen Provinz, um sich der Bienenzucht zu widmen. Doch sein beschauliches Leben wird gestört, als Linus Steinman im Dorf auftaucht, neun Jahre alt und stumm, der mit seinem einzigen Begleiter, einem Graupapagei, Hitlerdeutschland entkommen konnte. Doch welche Bedeutung haben die Zahlen, die der Papagei aufsagt? Ist es eine geheime SS-Chiffre? Oder der Code zu einem Schweizer Bankkonto? Als ein Mord geschieht, sieht sich der alte Meisterdetektiv vor ein schier unlösbares letztes Rätsel gestellt. Nach und nach entfaltet sich die wahre Geschichte des kleinen Jungen und seines Papageis in dieser Hommage an die großen klassischen Kriminalromanautoren. Eine meisterliche Erzählung vom Pulitzer-Preisträger Michael Chabon, die alle Liebhaber des klassischen Krimis begeistern wird.

»Auf gleicher Höhe mit den dichtesten Passagen aus Chabons wundervollem letzten Roman.«

»Einer der besten amerikanischen Romane in diesem Herbst … das Experiment eines Meisters.«

»Ein tiefsinniges Vergügen.«

»Eine liebevolle Hommage an ein Genre.«

»Eine unvergessliche Erzählung.«

»Genau das, was sich Chabon-Fans wünschen: ein kraftvolles und melancholisches Buch, meisterlich ausgeführt.«

Michael Chabon wurde 1963 in Washington D. C. geboren und wuchs in Columbia, Maryland, auf. Seine Arbeiten erschienen im New Yorker, in Harper’s, GQ, im Esquire und Playboy und in zahlreichen Anthologien. Für seinen Roman »Die unglaublichen Abenteuer von Kavalier und Clay« erhielt er 2001 den Pulitzer-Preis. Er lebt heute mit seiner Frau und seinen Kindern in Berkeley.

Andrea Fischer, geboren 1969, lebt seit 1989 in Düsseldorf und übersetzt dort aus dem britischen und amerikanischen Englisch, u. a. Stephen King, Dennis Lehane, Peter Robinson. 

Grady Tripp es un escritor ya cercano a la mediana edad y profesor en una universidad de provincias. En su juventud fue una promesa de la literatura, un esplendoroso chico prodigio que tuvo su fugaz temporada de gloria, pero el tiempo ha pasado y Grady arrstra desde hace ocho años una inmensa novela inconclusa, cada vez más larga e hirsuta y cuyo título es, claro está, Chicos prodigiosos. A Grady le gusta compararla con Ada, de Navokov, y dice que es la clase de obra que "enseña al lector cómo debe leerla a medida que se interna en ella". En una palabra, que Grady no sabe qué hacer con su novela, y está absolutamente perdido en una maraña de páginas que no llevan a ninguna parte.

Y, en medio de toda esta confusión literaria y también vital -Sara, su amante, está embarazada; su tercera esposa lo ha abandonado, y una joven escritora, alumna de sus talleres literarios, está fascinada por él, y le fascina-, recibe la visita del siempre sorprendente Terry Crabtree, su editor y cómplice desde hace muchos años, que declara que perderá su puesto en la editorial si no vuelve con un manuscrito genial bajo el brazo.

Y desde el mismo instante en que Crabtree baja del avión acompañado por la maravillosa Miss Sloviack -un(a) guapísimo(a) travesti-, y en los tres días que durará la Fiesta de las Palabras, una feria literaria que cada año se celebra en la universidad donde enseña Grady, se despliega ante el lector una de las novelas más deleitosas, brillantes y diversidad de los últimos años. Un irónico viaje por la espuma de los libros y la vida, donde la literatura y sus géneros, el cine y las mitologías de nuestra época son también protagonistas.

Żydowscy wygnańcy z Europy ogarniętej II wojną światową osiedlili się na Alasce. W 1948 r. dołączyli do nich Żydzi, którzy przegrali walkę o Erec Israel i zostali wyrzuceni z Palestyny. Amerykański Kongres przyznał jednak Żydom prawa do Kolonii Sitka jedynie na 60 lat, który to termin właśnie upływa i niebawem alaskańscy Żydzi znów staną się bezdomni. Niektórzy policjanci być może zachowają swoje miejsca pracy, pod warunkiem, że nie będą się zbytnio przejmować swoją pracą. Na przykład tragicznie zmarłym Emanuelem Laskerem, który był wprawdzie genialnym szachistą, ale nie tym, który urodził się w 1868 r. Uparty Lansman podąża tropem fałszywego Laskera, a przy okazji także śladami starszego kolegi po fachu, Philipa Marlowe’a. Pije, pali, obrywa i filozofuje jak on; szachów wprawdzie nienawidzi, ale nienawiścią bardzo zbliżoną do miłości. Pozornie zwykłe śledztwo zatacza coraz szersze kręgi. Ze zmarłym związani są chasydzcy gangsterzy, byli i aktualni agenci rozmaitych służb wywiadowczych, a także mnóstwo zwykłych ludzi, którym nie odmówił swojego błogosławieństwa. Sprawdzając kolejne domysły, Landsman pakuje się w kabałę, z której naprawdę trudno ujść z życiem.

As the summer of 2004 draws to a close, Archy Stallings and Nat Jaffe are still hanging in there—longtime friends, bandmates, and co-regents of Brokeland Records, a kingdom of used vinyl located in the borderlands of Berkeley and Oakland. Their wives, Gwen Shanks and Aviva Roth-Jaffe, are the Berkeley Birth Partners, two semi-legendary midwives who have welcomed more than a thousand newly minted citizens into the dented utopia at whose heart—half tavern, half temple—stands Brokeland.

When ex–NFL quarterback Gibson Goode, the fifth-richest black man in America, announces plans to build his latest Dogpile megastore on a nearby stretch of Telegraph Avenue, Nat and Archy fear it means certain doom for their vulnerable little enterprise. Meanwhile, Aviva and Gwen also find themselves caught up in a battle for their professional existence, one that tests the limits of their friendship. Adding another layer of complication to the couples’ already tangled lives is the surprise appearance of Titus Joyner, the teenage son Archy has never acknowledged and the love of fifteen-year-old Julius Jaffe’s life.

An intimate epic, a NorCal set to the funky beat of classic vinyl soul-jazz and pulsing with a virtuosic, pyrotechnical style all its own, is the great American novel we’ve been waiting for. Generous, imaginative, funny, moving, thrilling, humane, triumphant, it is Michael Chabon’s most dazzling book yet.

A shy manifesto, an impractical handbook, the true story of a fabulist, an entire life in parts and pieces, is the first sustained work of personal writing from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon. In these insightful, provocative, slyly interlinked essays, one of our most brilliant and humane writers addresses with his characteristic warmth and lyric wit the all-important question: What does it mean to be a man today?

By the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of

This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

Michael Chabon's sparkling first book of nonfiction is a love song in sixteen parts — a series of linked essays in praise of reading and writing, with subjects running from ghost stories to comic books, Sherlock Holmes to Cormac McCarthy. Throughout, Chabon energetically argues for a return to the thrilling, chilling origins of storytelling, rejecting the false walls around "serious" literature in favor of a wide-ranging affection.

In the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel , prose magician Michael Chabon conjured up the golden age of comic books — intertwining history, legend, and storytelling verve. In , he has condensed his boundless vision to craft a short, suspenseful tale of compassion and wit that reimagines the classic nineteenth-century detective story.

In deep retirement in the English country-side, an eighty-nine-year-old man, vaguely recollected by locals as a once-famous detective, is more concerned with his beekeeping than with his fellow man. Into his life wanders Linus Steinman, nine years old and mute, who has escaped from Nazi Germany with his sole companion: an African gray parrot. What is the meaning of the mysterious strings of German numbers the bird spews out — a top-secret SS code? The keys to a series of Swiss bank accounts perhaps? Or something more sinister? Is the solution to this last case — the real explanation of the mysterious boy and his parrot — beyond even the reach of the once-famed sleuth?

Subtle revelations lead the reader to a wrenching resolution. This brilliant homage, which won the 2004 Aga Khan Prize for fiction, is the work of a master storyteller at the height of his powers.

The author of Wonder Boys returns with a powerful and wonderfully written collection of stories. Caught at moments of change, Chabon's men and women, children and husbands and wives, all face small but momentous decisions. They are caught in events that will crystallize and define their lives forever, and with each, Michael Chabon brings his unique vision and uncanny understanding of our deepest mysteries and our greatest fears.

Le district de Sitka, en Alaska, est le nouvel Israël. Y vivent deux millions de Juifs parlant le yiddish. L’inspecteur Meyer Landsman, de la brigade des homicides, est chargé de faire régner la paix dans cette communauté désobéissante et encline aux mystères. Ainsi, dans un hôtel minable, Landsman découvre un junkie assassiné qui s’avère être le fils du plus puissant rabbin de Sitka, le chef des verbovers, des Juifs ultra-orthodoxes. Des ordres venant de l’étranger exigent la clôture de l’enquête mais Landsman s’obstine : ce mort lui plaît et il refuse de laisser son assassinat impuni… Le rabbin aurait-il commandité le meurtre de son fils ? Dans quel but ? Et quels liens entretient la communauté verbover avec d’étranges commandos parlant hébreu ?

Mit Detective Meyer Landsman, Polizist im Morddezernat des jüdischen Distrikts Sitka in Alaska, geht es bergab: Seine Ehe ist am Ende, er trinkt, beruflich steckt er in einer Sackgasse. Und nun wurde in dem schäbigen Hotel, in dem er neuerdings wohnt, auch noch ein Mord begangen. Landsman soll ermitteln. Scheinbar eine reine Routinesache. Doch der Tote ist der drogensüchtige Sohn des Rabbis von Sitka, in dem man den Messias vermutete. Der Fall strotzt vor Ungereimtheiten. Als von oben die Anweisung kommt, den Fall unverzüglich zu den Akten zu legen, recherchiert Landsman auf eigene Faust und gerät bald in ein Wespennest aus politischen Intrigen und religiösem Wahn. Denn der Mord wurde in politisch brisanten Zeiten begangen: Sitka soll in Kürze seinen eigenständigen Status verlieren, den Bewohnern droht erneut Vertreibung und Heimatlosigkeit.

Mit einem jüdischen Staat am Rande des ewigen Eises hat Michael Chabon ein irrwitziges literarisches Szenario für seinen packenden Whodunnit geschaffen: »Michael Chabon erzählt eine fesselnde Kriminalgeschichte und erfindet dabei augenzwinkernd die Geschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts neu«, schreibt Simone von Buren in der ›NZZ am Sonntag‹.

Archy Stallings i Nat Jaffe perseveren en el seu somni: mantenir viu Brokeland Records, el seu negoci, el paradís dels vinils de segona mà. Però l’aparició de l’exquarterback de la NFL Gobson Goode, el cinquè negre més ric d’Amèrica, amb plans per construir un gran centre comercial Dogpile ben a prop, pot suposar una amenaça o una condemna per a la seva petita i vulnerable empresa. D’èpica costumista, una Middlemarch de Carolina del Nord lligada al ritme funky del vinil clàssic de soul i jazz i amb un batec virtuós i pirotècnic de collita pròpia. Aquesta és la gran novel·la nordamericana que estàvem esperant.