Savage Feast

October 22, 2018
This delightful, recipe-filled memoir from novelist Fishman (A Replacement Life) follows his Jewish family—and their richly-described dinner tables—across three generations, from 1945 Belarus to 2017 Brooklyn. Beginning in postwar Minsk, where the Holocaust left “an extended family of fewer than a dozen,” the author punctuates the story of his relatives’ emigration experience with their meals, from the braised sardines in his grandmother’s “Nazi cast-iron pot,” to the “peeled hard-boiled egg with a snowcap of mayonnaise” he relished as a child on the train out of the Soviet Union in 1988. In New York, Fishman grew into a romantically troubled writer struggling in his 30s to cope with “trauma-derived mother-hunger” inherited from his forebears and to hold onto his “past without being consumed by its poison.” Fishman found an unlikely guide in his grandfather’s Ukrainian home aide, whose cooking lessons delivered him from a tenderly rendered episode of clinical depression. There’s a large web of characters and anecdotes, but Fishman grounds the narrative with his witty prose and well-translated family recipes—like the Soviet Wings his family cooked in Italy while immigrating to America, and kasha varnishkes, perfect “for Passover if you’re an atheist.” Fishman’s sprawling immigrant saga masterfully evokes a family that survives, united by food. Agent: Henry Dunow, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Literary.

February 1, 2019

Fishman (A Replacement Life) has written a funny yet moving memoir of his life as an immigrant from Minsk, Belarus, much of which revolves around the connections between food and family. Fishman discusses his early years living in Soviet Minsk with his parents and Holocaust survivor grandparents, and how they survived before their life-changing move to the United States. Included are many recipes from Oksana, the home aide who cares for Fishman's grandfather. These dishes were an integral part of their lives in Brooklyn. Another significant aspect of the narrative deals with the relationships Fishman had with several women throughout his life; not only his mother and grandmothers but also several girlfriends who helped shape his views and what he wanted out of life. Fishman was especially close with his grandfather and relies on his wisdom and humor to help him during his personal issues. VERDICT This beautifully written memoir is a wonderful story about family, love, and connecting with your roots. Recommended to readers who enjoyed Michael W. Twitty's The Cooking Gene.--Holly Skir, Broward Cty. Lib., FL

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 15, 2018
Food from the old country nourishes the spirits of refugees.At the age of 9, journalist and novelist Fishman (Creative Writing/Princeton Univ.; Don't Let My Baby Do Rodeo, 2016, etc.) immigrated to the United States from Soviet Belarus with his parents and grandparents via Vienna and Rome. In each city, they underwent an examination of documents, health, and suitability to enter the U.S. The process was protracted and tense, and some families were turned away. But after making an emotional case for their oppression, they were approved, and on Thanksgiving Day, 1988, they landed in New York to begin the challenging transformation of becoming Americans. Central to Fishman's insightful, absorbing memoir is hunger: "the trauma-derived mother-hunger that won't give you a moment to wonder if you're really hungry underneath all that worry." The trauma of cultural loss, shared by many immigrants, was assuaged by his grandfather's home health aide, whose recipes for potato latkes, stuffed cabbage, braised rabbit, liver pie, and scores more make the memoir a succulent treat. Besides hunger, the family harbored an overwhelming fear of risk and deep-seated pessimism. When Fishman's mother went to a therapist, distraught at her son's reckless decision to move to Mexico, the therapist, bemused, asked, "what if it goes well?" His mother was stunned: "Something as obvious as things turning out okay even if someone split from the pack had never occurred to her." Although their innate sense of doom made his family seem "medieval and maimed," he, too, was dogged by a pervasive feeling of sorrow and disorientation that led him to bruising romantic relationships and emerged as full-blown depression. "I used to think," he writes, "that if I could just persuade them that risk brought reward, that things turned out okay now and then, I could be myself without confusing or hurting them. But their losses and shocks reached so far," he concedes, "I couldn't save them." With great effort (and therapy and antidepressants), he managed to save himself.A graceful memoir recounting a family's stories with candor and sensitivity.

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December 1, 2018
Preteen �migr� from the collapsing Soviet Union to New York in 1988, Fishman was part of a mass exodus of Jews from Eastern Europe who navigated the vast gulf between Communist-led nations and the Western world of capitalism. These pioneers faced substantial culture shock as they learned that the American dream held as many challenges as promises. The Fishman family did not move directly from Minsk to Brooklyn but traced a path first to Vienna and then to Italy. Having survived the Holocaust and its privations left the elder family members obsessed with food. They maintained Old World culinary traditions, even if they didn't adhere to kosher diets. But hard work, cleverness, and good luck kept the family basically intact and ready to overcome the complexities of their new American lives. Fishman, author most recently of the novel Don't Let My Baby Do Rodeo (2016), admires and loves his parents and grandparents without glossing over their faults, and in this memoir, he documents those comforting recipes that shaped daily lives, from blini to salmon soup.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)