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Michael Chabon's new book The Yiddish Policeman's Union is THE SHIT. We finished it in a little over a weekend recently and regretted not that we'd once again failed to execute our long-held dream of eating every single item on the Taco Bell menu on Cinco de Mayo night.
Hack publicity writers have called Yiddish "brilliantly imagined" and "a novel only Michael Chabon could write." Uh, yeah. Whatever. Here's the nut: this is not a book that you put down and forget about three minutes later. Like (for us) Tess of the D'Urbervilles or Poisonwood Bible, the characters are so memorable, and the situation so real, that Chabon lodges them in your memory just as firmly as the memory of, say, your first grade teacher. Pretty neat trick, huh?
Chabon reads from it tonight, at 7:30, at Elliott Bay. There's a Mariner game at 7, so parking will be a bitch, but if Chabon's 10% of the reader that he is a novelist, you won't mind walking a few extra blocks.
The Times' Michael Upchurch did a good Q&A with Chabon in yesterday's paper.
Image from michaelchabon.com
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Hearing all this talk of the new Chabon release makes me a little sad…
A year ago, I would have been thrilled and no doubt attended his book signing. He’s been my “favorite” author since I first read his debut novel THE MYSTERIES OF PITTSBURGH back in the early 90s.
But I can no longer support the work of an author who has no regard for the story and characters that put him on the literary map.
In case you haven’t heard, there’s a film version of MOP coming out later this year… Written and directed by the guy who brought us DODGEBALL, in which he’s CHANGED 85% of Chabon’s original story.
And the sad part is… Michael Chabon himself APPROVED of the script! WHY would he do this? I can only think of one possible answer: $$
If you are a Chabon fan, esp MOP, I suggest you do NOT see this movie. You will be sadly disappointed at the COMPLETE removal of the gay character, Arthur Lecomte, and the fabrication of a romantic love triangle between Art Bechstein, Jane Bellwether, and a bi-sexual Cleveland Arning. And really, what is MOP without the presence of Phlox Lombardi? Alas, she’s barely in it.