May 2007
Page 1 of 1
Book
Michael Chabon: The Yiddish Policemen's Union
(harpercollins)
With his Pulitzer-winning 2000 novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Berkeley’s Michael Chabon staked a claim to writing the best novel about Jewish identity since Philip Roth’s Zuckerman trilogy in the 1980s. Chabon’s latest is also preoccupied with questions of cultural identity and assimilation. But Chabon is a child of comic books and pulp fiction, which makes his approach a diverting feint: a compelling allegory wrapped in a Raymond Chandler novel as it might be conceived by Doris Lessing. The setting is Alyeska—that is, an Israeli-occupied region of Alaska, a God-forsaken ghetto of depredation. It seems the Jews were cast out of Israel in 1948 and forced to settle in this Arctic outpost. One of the castoffs, Meyer Landsman, is a sad-sack detective trying to solve the murder of a chess-playing junkie, but what begins as a crime story turns into a wrenching tale of exile and loss, written in a brilliantly conceived, high-beam prose style. Landsman’s partner, Berko, has a “regal” profile, “worthy of a coin or a carved mountainside”; a seedy bar is “as empty as an off-duty downtown bus and smells twice as bad.” Chabon’s gift for levity perfectly calibrates the novel’s serious intent, so you wind up with a book that’s both good and good for you. Expectations are high for this novel, and Chabon has knocked the sucker right out of the ballpark. A
MARC WEINGARTEN
CD
MIGUEL MIGS: THOSE THINGS
(SALTED MUSIC)
My usual complaint with house music is that it’s so damn predictable. Sure, a million subgenres have sprouted up over the years—tech house, microhouse, progressive house—but mainstream house still features the same unbending 4/4 beats, murmuring disco-diva vocals, and soft keyboard filigrees. It’s sexy, it’s unsurprising, it’s no wonder a million former sorority girls use it to pad their cleavage with sophistication. At first, the sophomore LP by San Francisco’s Miguel Migs (who has remixed the likes of Britney Spears and Macy Gray and was nominated for Best DJ in the 2004 House Music Awards) follows the usual pattern. Even when he’s applying live congas, trumpet, or guitar, his tracks sound indistinguishable from those on every 12-inch around. On the new CD’s second half, however, Migs offers the raunchy grit of “Shake It Up” (with guest vocals from rap MC Sadat X), the neo-Prince soul of “Body Never Lies,” and the reggae-infused “Fire” (featuring Jamaican legend Junior Reid). By the time Migs heads back to houseland for the final two cuts, he sounds like a complete artist rather than a one-trick pony.B+
DAN STRACHOTA
BOOK
KAUI HART HEMMINGS: THE DESCENDANTS
(RANDOM HOUSE)
It takes skill to make readers root for your narrator even when he is not particularly likable. In her impressive debut novel, San Francisco–based writer Kaui Hart Hemmings (who came out with a well-received story collection, House of Thieves, in 2005) does just that. Matt King, father
If you or someone you know might be contemplating suicide, contact the following resources.
10/20/08—Copy chief & reviews editor Mia Lipman volunteers at a star-studded rally for words.
10/14/08—Rebecca Pariser and her camera crash the annual Burning Man after party.
Editorial intern and bluegrass musician Brian Heffernan reviews the eighth annual festival's highlights.
The eyes at San Francisco magazine capture two days of good, clean, carnival-themed fun at the second annual festival.
Irascible, iconoclastic, infectious—what made Don Nelson this way?
When you’re traveling, sometimes knowing what’s ahead is even more exciting than anticipating the unknown.
In a follow up to San Francisco's August feature on the future of slaughterhouses, Incanto chef Chris Cosentino offers a view of the past with a look at his collection of vintage abattoir photos.