Two things: (1) I really like to recommend books, but (2) I usually won’t recommend a book that I haven’t finished, or at least read most of. However, I’m going to break my rule today because I feel obligated to write about how good The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is. I mean it’s really, really good. I’m a fan of all of Chabon’s work – he’s brilliant. And with Union, even in the first sixty pages (which is all I have read thus far, though I hope that number will double by this evening), it is apparent that as he is maturing as a writer his brilliance is becoming more focused and his work more impreessive, accordingly.
In his first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Chabon’s talent for storytelling and constructing characters cannot be ignored. In Wonderboys, these skills are supplemented by a multi-dimensional plot and a foray into strategic detail. In The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, all of these elements are infused with tremendously, almost overwhelmingly so, rich details – this book could have been a series of novels and still been just as satisfying.
With Union, Chabon shows how disciplined of a writer he has become. His detail in this book is insanely perfect – it’s as if he wrote out twenty or thirty possible details for every sentence and chose the very best to use. Accordingly, the prose flows in a lively and very satisfying way. Chabon offers everything in the book by providing just enough. The story flows and develops in such a beautiful, well-constructed way, and the narrative has a very emotional feeling of immediacy to it. And, of course, the story really, truly means something. It carries weight, the sort of weight that makes literature worthwhile.
Check it out if you get a chance.
