By equal turns Koestler and Tarantino, Paul Goldberg’s debut novel, The Yid, turns history into tragicomic vaudeville. It’s 1953 and the Great Patriotic War has ended but the Jewish Question looms. In the dead of night, Stalin’s goons begin disappearing their Jewish compatriots: war heroes, artists, actors, widows, sons and daughters. But then, just like that, the purge ends, with the tyrant dead and buried. The days and nights that led to Stalin’s death—or assassination—is the subject of Paul Goldberg’s wildly audacious book.