The Yiddish Policemen's Union

It took a while for me to get into, and I do kind of feel bad saying it, but the Yiddish was an obstacle.. I just didn't feel at home. But a stretch is good, right? Once I got the characters voices established in my head, I really enjoyed the story and think it's one of the most creative books I've read in a long time.

I got to the point where Landsman was in the airplane as a hostage and I just couldn't take it anymore, it had become too ridiculous. I really wanted to finish this book, it had such good ideas. I loved the alternate history of there being a Jewish country in Alaska. I loved how there was a mini Jewish mafia of hassids, how everything was oozing schtick and yiddishisms, it felt so filled with culture and personality, more human and less caricature. But instead of focusing on world building and the alternate history and the parody of a forgotten mis-remembered time, we get Landsman. The wannabe noire Jewish police detective who can't stop obsessing over sex with his ex-wife who he somehow hates and can't get over, and is also his boss so we get that dynamic. Yeah the mystery was very interesting, and I usually hate mysteries, but I was so invested, until it somehow also became about Landsman and his MIA pilot sister so of course he gets his multi-page internal hateful monologue. There's self-hating Jew and then there's Landsman. This book felt like a medication, started out working as it should, but the more I read the more tolerant I became and then I couldn't stomach it anymore because the effects were lost. This could've been amazing, and I was so excited when I found a Jewish author who made Jewish characters in Jewish settings without making it about the Holocaust or anti-semitism, but god Landsman just ruined it all. By all means if you can get through it I encourage you to because Sitka and the culture in and around it is nothing like I have ever read, he just happens to be an awful, hair-ripping narrator.