At Celebration, Chabon Confounded By Chauvinism Charges\'d1And Hey, Where Was Wacky Wife Ayelet?

The New York Observer, May 1st, 2007

“It’d be like calling Groucho Marx anti-mustache,” the best-selling author Michael Chabon said of recent criticism in the New York Post that he and his new detective novel, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, are anti-Semitic. Mr. Chabon, who also wrote Wonder Boys and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, was standing in the Grill Room at the Four Seasons, where his friend Dan Peres—yes, still the editor-in-chief of Details!—was hosting Mr. Chabon’s publication party on Monday, April 30. The Post’s Kyle Smith had complained that the book depicts Jewish characters as combative, violent Zionists.

“That’s taking it more seriously than I think it deserves to be taken as a charge, because it just seems silly to me,” said Mr. Chabon, crossing his arms a bit defensively. He was wearing a dapper sports coat and his signature California mane. “I think it’s kind of ridiculous, because I’m not anti-Semitic. I don’t accept that designation at all. I love my Jewish heritage. I’m so proud of it. If I weren’t, I wouldn’t write about it, and I feel that I don’t need to prove that to anybody.”

Certainly, producer Scott Rudin agrees. He optioned The Yiddish Policemen’s Union for a movie long before the controversial book was finished. “Right now, it’s hard to imagine, but you never know,” said Mr. Chabon of its silver-screen prospects. So modest!

“I hope, or at least think, that my work speaks for itself,” he concluded. “But obviously everything’s open to interpretation, and people can say what they want. I just don’t want to get into an argument about it.”