I didn’t get all the way through, but not out of boredom, just not having the time to really delve into book, which moves fast and yet to me was somewhat dense, not in a bad way necessarily, but in a way that required more attention than I could have for it. What I read was dense with a wild spooling out of resilient and almost gleeful humor that is steeped in generations (or millennia) of something like intersectional oppression. This is a story of a commhnity of Soviet Jews trapped in this state that hates them — an oppressed minority in an already severely oppressive state. Dense too with Kafkaesque bureaucrats: There is a Soviet word for a society that is no longer functional. the governmental offices may exist by name, but they cannot actually be trusted to do anything, out of incompetence and/or institutionalized cruelty. These same themes apply with American characters in the US, not just the USSR. There is bullshit everywhere.

I did feel removed from the darkness of the situation described, but came to recognize that this distance is akin to what I felt was the glibness within the magical realism of the master and margarita. ( )

The Cold War, unsolved murders, the KGB, and Jewish refuseniks make this novel “immersive, unpredictable, and always ax-sharp”. It is a thrilling, witty, and slyly original Cold War mystery about a ragtag group of refuseniks in Moscow. Set in the mid-70’s, the novel is an enjoyably absurd farce. Joshua Cohen, author of the Netanyahus, calls it “Crime and Punishment-for the Jews!”

Paul Goldberg has three novels out. I've now read two of them and am eager to track down the third. Both of the novels I've read The Dissident and The Yid are set in the Soviet Union. Both employ a style that I think of as uniquely his: a combination of narrative and transcriptions of conversations. We never know who the narrator is in The Dissident, but that narrator clearly has access to classified documents—secretly recorded conversations; the possessions of dissident writers executed by the Soviet state, including their unpublished work; verified timelines, and the like.

I find reading Goldberg challenging in a rewarding way. He has detailed knowledge of Soviet history and US-Soviet relationships, and his books assume a similar level of knowledge in his readers, which in my case simply isn't true. The Dissident is set in the USSR in 1976, shortly before a visit by Henry Kissinger. My memories of that era are newspapers I mostly skimmed over each morning before walking to high school. I knew there was something called detente (which I thought was pronounced day-TEN-tay), but had no idea what it was exactly. So, for me, reading Goldberg is a bit like solving a puzzle. I can use my fragmented memories along with the material both directly stated and implied in his writing to infer specifics of the overall context of his writing. As I read Goldberg, I experience dozens of small light bulbs flashing on in my mind.

Goldberg's novels are built around what I might call hyperbolic realism. The plots and characters (at least some of them) are outlandish, but Goldberg pulls me in and has me reading as if there were nothing unusual about them. The Yid was built around an attempt by a mostly geriatric group of Soviet Jews plotting the assassination of Stalin.

The Dissident early on narrates the discovery of a pair of murder victims by Viktor Moroz on his wedding day: one of the two victims, a friend who is a black marketer, has promised to provide the necessary script and celebrants/elders for Viktor's Jewish wedding, given that the Jews involved have lived their lives in a forcibly secularized USSR and have little knowledge of the rituals of Judaism. The other is an employee at the U.S. embassy.

Viktor returns to his wedding, which is celebrated with the help of a not-very-well-informed Catholic priest who is part of the same dissident community as Viktor and those present at the wedding. Not long after, Viktor is "pulled in" by the KGB and given a choice: either be put on trial for the murders himself or help identify the murderer. The KGB wants this problem setttled in just over a week—before Kissinger arrives.

Viktor's investigation stumbles along. He's not sure whether he'd be better off being put on trial, with the hopes of a reduced sentence, or identifying the murderer, in which case he may be marked for murder himself, depending upon who that murderer is. Meanwhile the day-to-day life of the refusenik community Viktor belongs to continues: forbidden goods are brought into the country and distributed, agents of one kind or another seem to be following everyone, games of political "chicken" abound, and there are fierce debates among community members, including a debate about whether Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita can be of any use in illuminating the experiences of Jews in 1970s Moscow.

If you enjoy historical fiction that is at once ridiculous and perceptive, you're in for a treat with The Dissident. If you're like me, just take your time as you read, pulling together the threads of your own knowledge and the clues offered in the book, and you'll find yourself deeply satisfied in the end.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via Edelweiss; the opinions are my own. ( )