{"id":12323,"date":"2019-06-17T19:10:04","date_gmt":"2019-06-17T23:10:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=12323"},"modified":"2019-06-17T19:10:04","modified_gmt":"2019-06-17T23:10:04","slug":"episode-325-boris-fishman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-325-boris-fishman","title":{"rendered":"Episode 325 – Boris Fishman"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virtual Memories Show 325:
\nBoris Fishman<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/virtualmemories\/Episode_325_-_Boris_Fishman.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>

Subscribe: Spotify<\/a> | TuneIn<\/a> | RSS<\/a> | More<\/a><\/p>\n

“Cooking is the only thing in my life that creates the same exalted transport that writing does.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>With his new memoir, Savage Feast: Three Generations, Two Continents, and a Dinner Table (a Memoir with Recipes)<\/a>\"\", author Boris Fishman<\/a> explores his family’s Soviet Jewish legacy, his arc as a writer, and the glorious and varied meals that kept his family together from Minsk to Brighton Beach. We get into why creative nonfiction is his first passion (after publishing two novels), how he guaranteed his family’s disapproval by writing about them throughout his career, how he couldn’t leave Sovietness behind until he moved out of his parents’ home at 24 (despite emigrating from the USSR at 9), what he’d do if he quit the writing game, and why the recipes were the toughest part of Savage Feast<\/em>. We also talk smack about certain books and authors, compare Malamud to Roth and Bellow, discuss the first (very not Jewish\/not Russian) writer Boris became friends with, and explore the use of fiction to imagine alternate lives for oneself. Along the way, we make a life-changing pact, decide whether an MFA is worth pursuing, share book tour best practices, and conclude that Soviet Jewish guilt is exponentially more severe than Jewish guilt. It’s a whole lot of talk about books, food, and deracinated Jews! Give it a listen!<\/a> And go buy Savage Feast<\/a>\"\"!<\/p>\n

“What makes me Soviet is not having spent my first 9 years in that country, but how many years I spent under my parents’ roof.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n