From Here to Hotzeplotz

According to his message in The Believer, Michael Chabon (author of the wonderful Wonder Boys and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay) is currently “working on a novel, working title Hotzeplotz.” Here’s how he describes this work in progress:

It’s set in the Alaskan panhandle, in the present day, in the territory that was opened to the Jewish refugees of Europe, after Congress passed the King-Havenner Bill of 1940. The precarious balancing act of this Yiddish-speaking nation-within-a-nation is imperiled by the discovery of a mysterious skull in a construction site, and the novel unfolds as its protagonist, a homicide detective named Meyer Landsman, investigates. “Hotzeplotz” is the name of a real town in the Ukraine or someplace, but it’s used in the Yiddish expression “from here to Hotzeplotz,” meaning more or less the back of nowhere, Bumfuck, Iowa, the ends of the earth.

If you’re as excited as I am, you can check Chabon’s web site for updates.

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