A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka: A Memoir

Blurb

An Amazon Best Book of the Month, November 2014: Lev Golinkin’s memoir, A Backpack, A Bear, Eight Crates of Vodka, begins with a trip back in time, when he experienced harsh prejudice as a young Jewish boy in the Ukraine, and leading into chaotic final years of the Soviet Union when his family made their escape and rebuilt their lives with the help of American Jewish aid workers. Fast forward to Lev Golinkin all grown up and now an American citizen searching for identity in the footsteps of his past. A perceptive, unflinching, and unexpectedly funny look at a life sculpted by history and how one man found self-acceptance in the roots of his self-hatred. –Seira Wilson