A review by tittypete
The Fixer by Bernard Malamud

5.0

Loved it. Dark and sad but with a glimmer of triumph toward the end. Takes place in a time and location I don't know much about though it's supposedly Fiddler on the Roof's setting was similar. A dude from the Pale of Settlement goes to Kyiv in search of work, hiding the fact that he's a Jew. He gets arrested for killing a Russian kid in a ritual murder blood-libel style and rots in prison while the Russians (Ukranians?) try to get him to confess. He holds fast and it's brutal. Shows the depths people will sink to to hold on to their scapegoats and hatred. Pretty fucked up. And another example of that part of the world being the mother of all shittiness.