A Replacement Life A Novel
A Replacement Life by Boris Fishman is a literary novel published by HarperCollins on June 3, 2014. This first edition spans 336 pages and is written in English. The story follows Slava Gelman, a failed journalist who is drawn into the morally complex world of forging Holocaust-restitution claims for elderly Russian Jews in Brooklyn. As he navigates his identity as an immigrant and a writer, Slava grapples with the weight of his family’s history and the American Dream that seems just out of reach.
Readers will find a narrative that explores themes of family, honor, and justice through Slava’s experiences. The novel delves into the intricacies of cultural heritage and the immigrant experience, revealing how Slava’s actions blur the lines between truth and deception. As he becomes increasingly entangled in his forgeries, he faces the consequences of his choices, ultimately seeking a sense of belonging in a new world. A Replacement Life presents a thought-provoking examination of identity and the lengths one might go to achieve their dreams.
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Winner of the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award
Winner of the American Library Association’s Sophie Brody Medal
Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award
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 American Dream is not panning out for him—Century, the legendary magazine where he works as a researcher, wants nothing greater from him. Slava wants to be a correct, blameless American—but he wants to be a lionized writer even more.
Slava’s turn as the Forger of South Brooklyn teaches him that not every fact is the truth, and not every lie a falsehood. It takes more than law-abiding to become an American; it takes the same self-reinvention in which his people excel. Intoxicated and unmoored by his inventions, Slava risks exposure. Cornered, he commits an irrevocable act that finally grants him a sense of home in America, but not before collecting a price from his family.
A Replacement Life is a dark, moving, and beautifully written novel about family, honor, and justice.
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