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Like Haruki Murakami in Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1991), Chabon plays with the conventions of the Chandlerian private-eye novel, but that's only one ingredient in an epic-scale alternate-history saga of Jewish life since World War II. The premise draws on an obscure historical fact: Franklin Delano Roosevelt once proposed that Alaska, not Israel, become the homeland for Jews after the war. In Chabon's telling, that's exactly what happened, except, inevitably, it hasn't gone as planned: the U.S. government now has enacted a policy that will evict all Jews without proper papers from Sitka, the center of Jewish Alaska. In the midst of this nightmare, browbeaten police detective Meyer Landsman investigates the murder of a heroin-addicted chess prodigy who happens to be the disgraced son of Sitka's most powerful rabbi. No one wants this case solved, from Landsman's boss (his ex-wife, Bina) to the FBI, but our Yiddish Marlowe keeps digging, uncovering apocalypse in the making.
At once a gripping whodunit, a love story, an homage to 1940s noir, and an exploration of the mysteries of exile and redemption, The Yiddish Policemen's Union is a novel only Michael Chabon could have written.
该小说以一段模糊的历史事实为背景展开。美国总统罗斯福曾经提议二战后把阿拉斯加作为犹太人的祖国，而这一提议在这部小说中成为现实。在小说里，犹太人一直住在阿拉斯加的Sitka，但是美国政府突然出台一个新政策，要把没有有效证件的人逐出这里。人们处于一片慌乱之中。而我们的主人公--兰德斯曼警探发现，住在他隔壁的国际象棋神童遭到神秘暗杀，但是他的上司和联邦调查局都不允许人插手此事。于是，兰德斯曼开始了他的调查旅程……
About Author
Michael Chabon was born May 24, 1963 in Washington, D.C. He earned his undergraduate degree in English at the University of Pittsburgh in 1984. His major works include The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Wonder Boys and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay which won a lot of prizes such the New York Society Library Prize for Fiction, the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award, the Commonwealth Club Gold Medal and the Pulitzer Prize.
迈克尔·查本，1963年5月24日生于美国华盛顿，1984年在匹兹堡大学获得英语专业学士学位。主要作品包括《匹兹堡迷思录》、《天生奇才》和《卡维利亚与克莱奇遇记》等。其中《卡维利亚与克莱奇遇记》获奖无数，包括纽约学会图书馆小说奖、海湾地区图书评论奖、联邦俱乐部金奖和普利策小说奖。
(实习生 江巍）
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