The Future is a Trilogy; The Past is a Series

Michael Chabon is a rare sort of writer who moves from genre to genre to mainstream fiction with ease, and without anyone seeming to complain. After reading this novel I can understand why. He is quite simply a very good writer. His use of language is wonderful, his characters are interesting and complex, and his story-telling skills are first-rate. It’s not surprising that he has won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction (for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay).

This novel is science fiction only in the fact that it takes place in world with an alternate history to our own. In this world, Israel fell in 1948 and the Jews were dispersed around the world to wherever would have them. A temporary haven was created for them in the District of Sitka, Alaska, and a thriving community took root. The novel takes place a couple of weeks before “Reversion,” when the district is set to revert back to Alaskan control, and the Jews living there are being dispersed once again.

On the surface this is a mystery story in which a homicide detective, Meyer Landsman, defies the authorities to investigate a murder that takes place in the dive of a hotel he calls home. Together with his partner, half-Tlingit Berko Shemets, and the alternating interference and support of his boss and ex-wife, Bina Gelbfish, he tries to unravel the truth behind the murder.

Below the surface, though, is the story of a man who is trying to redeem himself and his life. He has hit bottom, and seems to feel he has nothing left to lose in continuing an investigation that appears destined to ruin him or worse. So he presses on into a world of chess, politics, the Jewish underworld and Jewish mysticism.

I loved the various twists and turns of the plot, the unpredictable events and the world that Chabon has created. I loved the humanity of the characters, and the complexity of the society of the Jews of Sitka. And I thoroughly enjoyed Chabon’s writing.