G343 Book Review of A Replacement Life by Boris Fishman
Name of Book: A Replacement Life Author: Boris Fishman ISBN: 978-0-06-228787-8 Publisher: Harper Type of book: New York, 2006, reparations, victim, Russian-Jewish culture, adopted culture vs native culture, love triangle, choices, lying Year it was published: 2014 Summary: A singularly talented writer makes his literary debut with this provocative, soulful, and sometimes hilarious story of a failed journalist asked to do the unthinkable: Forge Holocaust-restitution claims for old Russian Jews in Brooklyn, New York. Yevgeny Gelman, grandfather of Slava Gelman, "didn't suffer in the exact way" he needs to have suffered to qualify for the restitution the German government has been paying out to Holocaust survivors. But suffer he has--as a Jew in the war; as a second-class citizen in the USSR; as an immigrant to America. So? Isn't his grandson a "writer"? High-minded Slava wants to put all this immigrant scraping behind him. Only the Amer...