For all the grimness of its subject, Dan Jacobson's facility of invention makes [The Confessions of Josef Baisz] a surprisingly lighthearted book. He obviously had a lot of fun inventing Sarmeda…. As a political fantasy it is at once playful and provocative, and as a study of the psychology of betrayal—that complex tangle of love, pity, self-hatred, and power-seeking—it is compelling. While a certain off-handedness makes me wonder if Jacobson was bringing all his considerable energies to bear on his subject, he has brought enough of them to make this a supremely amusing fable for our time.
Katha Pollitt, "Books in Brief: 'The Confessions of Josef Baisz'," in Saturday Review (© 1978 by Saturday Review Magazine Corp.; reprinted with permission), Vol. 6, No. 3, February 3, 1979, p. 44.
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