“Hope : A Tragedy” by Shalom Auslander (Riverhead Books, 292 pages, $26.95)

What would you do if you bought a house and found a woman living in the attic? She claims that she is Anne Frank — the same Anne Frank who supposedly died in a German death camp in 1945. She wrote that famous diary. That Anne Frank.

This is the absurdly compelling premise of the novel “Hope : A Tragedy” by Shalom Auslander. Imagine that Anne Frank had survived. She would be in her 80s now. In “Hope : A Tragedy” she has been hiding out for years.

Our narrator, Solomon Kugel, describes how his family bought this house. Then he makes his bizarre discovery — the most famous victim of the Holocaust is still alive and writing her next book up in his attic.

Kugel is living with his wife, his young son, his ailing mother and one tenant (that he knows of). Kugel is annoyed by tapping sounds passing through the heat vents. Mysterious odors are drifting through the house. He wonders where these sounds and smells are originating.

Kugel investigates. He finds Anne Frank hiding in the attic. Those tapping sounds are being made by Anne typing her manuscript. Kugel is having financial difficulties. Their tenant is demanding that he be allowed to use some space up in the attic. The presence of Anne Frank has complicated things.

His first impulse is to toss this unlikely squatter out on her head. She is an inconvenient annoyance for him. Kugel is Jewish — and his religion has been a challenge. His mother is obsessed with the Holocaust. She imagines that she has survived German death camps. But she was never even there.

When Kugel’s mother becomes aware of their famous guest, it provides her with a focus for her Holocaust obsession.

Meanwhile Kugel’s life is in decline. His marriage is on the rocks. He is in trouble at his job. And the local community is seething with paranoia. An arsonist has been setting fire to old farmhouses like theirs.

Auslander has written a darkly humorous novel. He has taken one of the most unfunny of subjects, the Holocaust, and injected it with a relentless mirth.

At one point Kugel observes a photograph of a man in a death camp. The man is grinning. The point being that humor is the one element that makes this grim subject bearable.

Kugel complains to the real-estate agent who sold them the house. She claims that she didn’t know that Anne Frank was there. Kugel asks her: “why, precisely, should I believe you?” She replies: “I’m a real estate agent, Mr. Kugel. As a rule, you shouldn’t believe me.”

Events conspire to buffet poor Kugel as he is tossed about by these increasingly bizarre circumstances. His observations are deadpan and hilarious. Ultimately Anne Frank steals the show. She has had it with the Holocaust. She is brutally funny and in the end, is the ultimate survivor.

Vick Mickunas of Yellow Springs interviews authors every Friday at 1:30 p.m. and on Sundays at 11 a.m. on WYSO-FM (91.3). For more information, go online to www.wyso.org/programs/book-nook. Contact him at vick@vickmickunas.com.