Two solid reads...

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

It moved so slowly, it nearly stopped. For a mystery that is. But I kept on reading because the author created such an interesting world, and imaginary Jewish Alaska. The description of a neighbourhood, "Shvartsn-Yam" in the Sitka Sound:

"The swingers and the vacationers gave way to a population of upper-lowlifes, Russian immigrants, a smattering of ultra-orthodox Jews, and a bunch of bohemian professionals who like the atmosphere of ruined festivity that lingers in the neighbourhood like a strand of tinsel on the branch of a bare tree."

Another taste...

"The Dnyeper stairwell reeks of sea air, cabbage, cold cement. When he gets to the top, he lights a papiros to reward himself for industry and stands on the Taytsh-Shemets doormat, keeping the mezuzah company. He has one lung coughed up and the other on its way when Ester-Malke Taytsh-Shemets opens the door. She holds a home pregnancy test stick with a bead, on its business end, of what must be urine. When she notices Landsman noticing it, she coolly makes it disappear into a pocket of her bathrobe."

This tale centres on a disallusioned detective (a drunk as well) living in a flop hotel estranged from his wife, who has recently become his boss. His sidekick is Berko a towering aboriginal turned Jew. The District of Sitka was created sixty years ago following the horrors of the Holocaust and the 1948 collapse of Israel - in this version of history this Jewish territory is about to revert to Alaskan control, this period of transition will leave a lot of people without residence permits. There is a dark, end times feel to the mystery, a fight against giving up in both the protagonist and the society in general. Nicely described in the book jacket, "at once a gripping whodunit, a love story, a homage to 1940's noir, and an exploration of the mysteries of exile and redemption"...Richly atmospheric, the sounds and the smells of damp and dark permeate the pages.




Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

A few moments of doubt during the first few pages, oh no, another "The Mysterious Incident of the Dog in the Night" another precocious uber smart child protagonist, but by the end of chapter one, a few tears had trickled down my cheek. I guess I was suprised, and that is what happens when you borrow a book from a friend and fail to bother reading the jacket. I kept reading, not because I wanted to find out what would happen (that part of the "quest" seemed a bit cliche) but because the narrative stirred me. It reminded me of how September 11th effected individuals, and what really happened afterwards. How did people pick up the pieces and carry on? And in this story, how does a child carry on?

Nine year old Oscar Schell wonders if his dad was a jumper. He has a book of "things that happened to me" under his bed with strange and wonderful images cut from magazines (and this is incorporated in the novel) and one is of a man falling from one of the twin towers. When looking around in his parents closet he finds a vase and inside the vase there is a key inside an envelope which says "Black" written in his father's handwriting. At one point in the story he wanders into an art supply store to find out if they have that pen...the pen was red. The shopkeeper notes that usually people write a colour in the exact colour when testing pens on the pads they keep there. He looks and sure enough, all sorts of scribbles and doodles are ont the pads but a great many people write the colour of the pen they are testing. Or their name. This is when he see's his fathers name scribbled on a test pad, soon he finds it all over the store. His father died over a year before. Little moments where someone remembers or realizes that the past is still present, that reminders are everywhere are one aspect of how the novel grapples with the concept of time. Time of death, times before, times after, and how they intersect. I highly recommend this book.