It’s hardly law news, but news it is. Michael Chabon, the ridiculously talented author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay, Wonder Boys, and Mysteries of Pittsburgh, and the husband of writer Ayelet Waldman, scored a curious victory the other day, nabbing the Hugo for The Yiddish Policeman’s Union.
Chabon previously won the Pulitzer for Kavalier and Klay and he now enters unusual territory: as far as I can tell, he is the first author ever to win both a Hugo and a Pulitzer.
I’m not a huge sci-fi fan, but Chabon’s book really is exceptional. It’s set in a part of Alaska that never was and, presumably, never will be: the Jewish State of Alyeska. The state was created after the State of Israel was driven into the sea in the 1948 war. There, a sholem is a sidearm, the gun of choice for those policing the chosen frozen. While the book won a science fiction award, it is, as much as anything, a hard boiled detective novel. His books are never easy reads, but they do pay dividends. This one is worth the investment.