A feast for the imagination, Krutikov's Yiddish Fiction and the Crisis of Modernity is best begun with dessert; the last chapter of this richly observed, original study of the modernist turn in Yiddish prose fiction repays with interest the reader's diligent investment in the first three-quarters of the book. Here, Krutikov not only offers the most concise and compelling version of his argument but also resolves some of the questions that bedevil his attempt to determine the role of literature in history. The problem is, of course, not his alone but of paramount importance for every student of Eastern European Jewish culture. Krutikov's diachronic reading of a single historical moment through the prism of fiction thus offers an immediate point of entry into the gap between the reality of Jewish lives in history and the construction of Jewish life in literature.