"[A] singular debut novel. An ambitious historical fantasy. Goldberg''s writing is as spry and pointed as that pirouette that Levinson executes. There are clever play-lets and monologues interspersed into the main narrative here, as well as flashbacks that deepen the humanity of the characters. Evoking the clash of tone and subject found in movies like The Producers and The Great Dictator , The Yid is a screwball farce about atrocity. History here is portrayed as a mad improvisation in which the actors take charge and manically rewrite the script, even as they enact it. Paul Goldberg''s animating intelligence gives all this madness a stunning coherence that, these days, we all too rarely get from either art or life." --Maureen Corrigan, NPR''s Fresh Air "Can a novel about anti-Semitism and the brutal absurdity of the Soviet Union in 1953 really be the stuff of high comedy? Give Paul Goldberg''s first novel about racism, genocide, secret police and a plot to assassinate Stalin a whirl.

This novel''s black humor is surpassed only by its historical audacity and literary fearlessness. Is it for everyone? No, but if you''re looking for the next "Catch-22," it may be for you." --Tony Norman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "Mr. Goldberg has written a book that revolves about Stalin''s final blow against the country''s remaining Jews. Mr. Goldberg comes up with a team of Yiddish-speaking jokester-superheroes who are at the heart of his story, and who make it their mission to avenge countless acts of anti-Semitism, both real and anticipated. The Yid is about Stalin''s worst enemy as well as his favorite prey. Mr.

Goldberg fuses these characters and all that they suggest to Stalin--Paul Robeson for Lewis, Anna Akhmatova for one of the book''s women--into one hellish vision to haunt that dictator during his last hours on earth." --Janet Maslin, The New York Times " The Yid is darkly playful and generous with quick insights into the vast weirdness of its landscape. We are most immersed in the past, I think, when we watch someone manipulate it. This might be, ironically, a lesson Stalin taught too, but it''s still an apt one for readers to consider when engaged with such a fine enterprise as this one." --Glen David Gold, The Washington Post "An absorbing historical page-turner that somehow wrings delight from the terrible. Although it doesn''t involve Hitler, the story is perhaps an American Jew''s next-best revenge fantasy: a couple of wisecracking Jewish war veterans team up with a Yiddish speaking African-American engineer and a fearless young half-Jewish orphan to thwart Stalin''s plans for a second Holocaust. Its Hollywood appeal notwithstanding, the book is much better than it sounds -- and does such a fine job of recreating its sinister milieu that it''s worth taking a moment to sort out what''s real and what''s not. Goldberg pushes and pulls history as needed to work his magic.

It''s a good story, but what makes this such a terrific book is the author''s confident mastery of the world he immerses us in, the fascinating and tragic back stories he weaves with little loss of narrative momentum, and his conspiratorial relationship to the reader. The narrator''s knowing presence is one of several factors, including dialogue presented as if in a play, that gives us the feeling we are not so much reading a novel as attending a live performance." --Daniel Akst, Newsday " The Yid [is a] rollicking romp of a novel. In something like the mode of writer-director Quentin Tarantino in his films Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained, Goldberg offers The Yid as a literary score-settling machine: a way for one of history''s most brutal villains to receive a kind of cosmic comeuppance at the hands of those he victimized in real life. The difference is that unlike Tarantino, whose revenge fantasies undercut their higher purpose with an excess of sensational violence, Goldberg is less interested in the body than he is in the soul. The Yid is as hilarious as it is appalling, and vice versa." --Kevin Nance, Chicago Tribune "If a plot by two aging Bolshevik fighters to save Soviet Jews by killing Stalin sounds crazy, just wait until you read this book! The Yid is Paul Goldberg''s sophisticated, multiform, madcap romp through the alternative Soviet universe of fantasy as reality set in February 1953. The Yid is a rollicking delight.

Goldberg has a masterful touch of the absurd. So suspend disbelief, tolerate profanity and kvell seeing old Jews trump tyranny." --Neal Gendler, The American Jewish World "Most fiction and nonfiction accounts of Stalin-era arrests go like this: The secret police come in the night and take the accused away in a Black Maria, to never be seen again. The neighbors sit by quietly, pretending not to have heard a thing. Mr. Goldberg amends this with a very American sensibility, replacing fear and submission with Tarantino-esque swagger. The Yid is a literary relative of an action flick and like a good action flick, it''s a morality tale. What carries The Yid is the strength of its premise: It allows for the possibility of resistance instead of resignation in the face of tyranny.

" --Anya Ulinich, The Wall Street Journal "[An] imaginative new novel. A fantastic tale of some rebellious Jews who decide to do something about Stalin''s evil plan." --Vick Mickunas, WYSO-FM''s The Book Nook "Goldberg packs layers of meaning and atmosphere into the story, deftly blending humor and horror. Goldberg''s achievement in The Yid transcends the misery and evil he portrays. Just as Shakespeare inserts jesters among the gore of his tragedies, Goldberg has constructed a tragedy instead of a travesty of the human spirit. He never lets his characters give up hope of solving their predicament. Despite the horrors he shows us, we ought not look away." --Stephanie Shapiro, The Buffalo News "Goldberg entertainingly fills in backstories and context, of good and bad alike, and his Soviet portrait is sharp and convincing.

This is good writing, and a well-presented story. It''s a pretty exciting story too-- The Yid is a superior thriller, and one that offers considerable comic relief." --Michael Orthofer, The Complete Review "A wild ride. THE YID introduces readers to a cast of characters whose quirkiness bordering on lunacy make them fascinating, memorable and reminiscent of the men and women portrayed in Joseph Heller''s CATCH-22. A wild, exciting and simply crazy adventure. There is a great deal of wisdom in this novel, which weaves wit and insight to provide readers information about the evil history of Soviet Russia. It''s the kind of book that needs to be read and then re-read." --Stuart Shiffman, BookReporter.

com "[A] provocative new novel. For a sense of Goldberg''s acid tone, imagine a Solzhenitsyn tale set in the lethal Soviet world, but restyled by Larry David. Goldberg''s smart, sarcastic, bitter, occasionally unhinged voice is what makes The Yid remarkable, even for a reader who doesn''t remember who the Mensheviks were and why the Bolsheviks wanted to kill them." --Jim Higgins, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel "Paul Goldberg gives Soviet terror a wild spin in The Yid . When Stalin''s henchmen come for an aging Jewish actor, all hell breaks hilariously loose." -- More "On one level, The Yid , Goldberg''s first novel, is a tribute to the millions who were exiled and murdered during Stalin''s ruthless three-decade reign. On another, it''s a celebration of Jewish humor, theater and language--Yiddish is sprinkled throughout the book, and, in choosing the title, Goldberg reclaims the word "yid" from those who''ve used it as a slur. These are weighty themes, but The Yid wears them with style, because it also happens to be a satisfying thriller.

This is also an improbably funny book. Replete with imaginative action sequences, smart-alecky sidekicks and a quixotic conspiracy meant to right many years of wrongs, The Yid is a bracing fictional take on a crucial moment in history." --Kevin Canfield, Minneapolis Star Tribune "Filled with large literary doses of Shakespeare, Gogol, and Sophocles, Goldberg''s historical novel boasts flashes of brilliance. The Yid is a well-written, darkly comedic novel of historical fiction, with memorable characters and a delectable touch of the absurd." --Gary Katz, JewishBookCouncil.org "Call it, perhaps, a Novel of the Absurd. Or call it tragicomedy, as it turns long held European prejudices against the Jews into the stuff of farce, whether it be nonsensical like the length of noses or infamous like the blood libel. Goldberg''s vision of the world is darkly comic.

It is not haphazard that he references work like Kafka''s The Trial; his novel has much in common with the earlier masterpiece. The Yid is the kind of novel that rewards re-reading. Speed reading, skimming won''t do. This is a book that demands the reader''s attention." --Jack Goodstein, Blogcritics.org "Paul Goldberg''s debut novel, The Yid , is a wildly imaginative account of Josef Stalin''s death that combines elements of drama, thriller and farce into an energetic alternate history of the dictator''s demise. This vivid novel.offers an opportunity to contemplate what one tyrant''s end might have been like if justice ever truly were poetic.

" --Harvey Freedenberg, Shelf Awareness "If you like books and you''re okay with Jews, The Yid is the novel for you!" -- Gary Shteyngart "A tragicomic tou.