Everything Is Illuminated

First Line:

My legal name is Alexander Perchov. But all of my many friends dub me Alex, because that is a more flaccid-to-utter version of my legal name.

Description:

Hilarious, energetic, and profoundly touching, a debut novel follows a young writer as he travels to the farmlands of eastern Europe, where he embarks on a quest to find Augustine, the woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis, and, guided by his young Ukrainian translator, he discovers an unexpected past that will resonate far into the future. Excerpt in The New Yorker.

Selected Reviews:

"Comedy and pathos are braided together with extraordinary skill in a haunting debut....Beauty from ashes."

--Kirkus