Get the Tickets: Michael Chabon Reading From New Novel

Michael Chabon will read from The Yiddish Policemen's Union on Thursday, May 3, at 6:30 pm at First Parish Church. Tickets can be purchased for $5 from Harvard Book Store.

Pulitzer winner Michael Chabon's new book, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, is beyond ambitious – it describes a colony of European Jews that was established during World War II in Sitka, Alaska. It could have happened. Such a plan was under discussion within the FDR administration.

The plot kicks off with the territory already established and about to return to Alaska. That's enough action in itself, but Chabon also throws in a murder mystery around a chess-playing junkie and "gangster rabbis."

The aforementioned "gangster rabbis" appear to be stirring up controversy. For example, the New York Post takes issue with Chabon's depiction of Jews (Chabon is Jewish himself). Other reviewers see that Chabon is just taking the train of his own imagination all the way to Alaska - the New York Sun said the book reflects a "zany integrity." Oh, and Gawker said that the publication date for the book was pushed back because it was "troubled with a bad case of being crap."

Disrespectful? Zany? Crap? If his book is causing all kinds of debate before it's even released, then he must be doing something right!