A Replacement Life: a Novel / Boris Fishman 321 p.

Yevgeny (Slava) Gelman is an aspiring young writer with a grunt job at a prestigious New York magazine.  He and his extended family emigrated from Belarus when he was 9, and he has spent his adolescence the way many immigrant children do: translating for his elders, shifting between two worlds, explaining why he doesn't want to become a doctor or a successful businessman.  When the German government begins accepting applications for restitution from Holocaust survivors, Slava becomes involved in his grandfather's scheme to craft false narratives for those Jewish families who survived Soviet rather than Nazi repression.

At last Slava comes into his own as a writer, but here is where his troubles begin. Emotionally Replacement Life feels like a pretty standard coming-of-age story.  Yet Fishman has given Slava a sweet, charming voice, and he cleverly raises questions about the truth and who owns it, and, fundamentally, the power of story.  Worth reading for the hilarious and poignant conversations between Slava and his grandfather alone, I recommend this one.