Michael Chabon somehow manages to write a novel which both science fiction and a hardboiled detective story, set in an alternative universe. If that wasn't complex enough and a seemingly sure recipe for disaster, somehow it actually turns out to be a good book. The alternative world shows that Sitka, Alaska was created as a refugee haven for the Jews fleeing the Holocaust. It has become a Jewish metropolis populated by the European Jews who were being persecuted in the 1940’s. The story takes place sixty years after the initial land grant, when America is due to reclaim Sitka so, leaving the two million people who inhabit it with an uncertain fate. The rest of the alternative world is not described in detail but a major point is that the state of Israel does not exist, having been destroyed in the Arab-Israeli war. Never for a moment do you question the creation of this world as anything but real, which is a testament to Chabon’s creative and descriptive powers. ...
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