Don't Let My Baby Do Rodeo - Softcover

'Empathetically narrated... begins with the unexpected and ends with the enigmatic' -- Sunday Telegraph

'A rewarding read: sensitive, wise and truthful' -- Big Issue

'Fishman is in cool and nuanced control of his material' -- Herald

'When Max finally learns the truth of his origins, his shock and confusion are so heart-rending to read' -- Financial Times

'Fishman fills the book with a cast of colourful minor characters... Many will find this story of an unhappy family trying to pull itself together moving, at times funny, a pleasure to read' -- Jewish Chronicle

'This is an extraordinary book, worthy of joining the pantheon of American literature' -- Bookoxygen

'Fishman's writing is impossible to fault, especially in its descriptive sections. He writes with precision about the emotional currents between fighting people; he writes sex well; he writes perfectly about the landscape of the American West' -- Elle Thinks

'He is, simply, a joy to read' -- New York Times Book Review

'[Fishman's] second novel is a fresh, unpredictable departure from his first. Max may or may not do rodeo, but from now on expect Boris Fishman to do anything' -- San Francisco Chronicle

'An eloquent and uncynical tale of how far people must travel to find out what they truly want and who they truly are' -- Chicago Tribune

'Touching... a sensitive and surprisingly adventurous exploration of one woman's wonder and suffering' -- Publishers Weekly

'Fishman smartly observers that the assimilation novel and road-trip novel make good partners. Both, after all, are about finding freedom. A comic novel about parenting infused with emotional intelligence' -- Kirkus

'With Fishman, we are in the hands of a genuine miniaturist, a cultivator of particulars, a writer who knows that familial conflict is in the realm of intense feeling packaged in tiny gestures' --O, the Oprah Magazine

'A formidable talent, a fabulous young writer with a steely wit and razor-sharp eye... Don't Let My Baby Do Rodeo is a brilliant and exhilarating read' -- Jewish Quarterly

'Engaging and tender novel... [that] explores universal questions of relationships, belonging, inheritance and the mystery of just who we are' --The Lady

Maya Shulman and Alex Rubin met in 1992, when she was a Ukrainian exchange student with "a devil in her head" about becoming a chef instead of a medical worker, and he was the coddled son of Russian immigrants wanting to toe the water of a less predictable life.

Twenty years later, Maya Rubin is a medical worker in suburban New Jersey, and Alex is his father's second in the family business. The great dislocation of their lives is their eight-year-old son, Max--adopted from two teenagers in Montana despite Alex's view that "adopted children are second-class."

At once a salvation and a mystery to his parents--with whom Max's biological mother left the child, with the cryptic exhortation "don't let my baby do rodeo"--Max suddenly turns feral, consorting with wild animals, eating grass, and running away to sit facedown in a river.

Searching for answers, Maya convinces Alex to embark on a cross-country trip to Montana to track down Max's birth parents--the first drive west of New Jersey of their American lives. But it's Maya who's illuminated by the journey, her own erstwhile wildness summoned for a reckoning by the unsparing landscape, with seismic consequences for herself and her family.

Don't Let My Baby Do Rodeo is a novel about the mystery of inheritance and what exactly it means to belong.

Praise for A Replacement Life

"Boris Fishman's first novel, A Replacement Life, is bold, ambitious, and wickedly smart. . . . The only problem with this novel is that its covers are too close together. . . . Undoubtedly, comparisons will be made--to Bellow and the Roths (Henry and Philip), as well as to . . . Bernard Malamud." --Patricia T. O'Conner, New York Times Book Review

"Fishman, like his protagonist, is a born storyteller with a tremendous gift for language on all brow levels, making for a captivating and rare first novel that is tender, learned, funny, and deeply soulful--frequently all at the same time."--San Francisco Chronicle

"Fishman's firm yet light authorial hand, his gift for character and plot development, and his searing use of the English language belie his youth and his novice-novelist status. His witty dialogue and wry, believable descriptions leaven the dark, dense bread of the tale."--Chicago Tribune

"An ingenious debut. . . . The novel is often very funny, but its most rewarding moments come as Slava, listening to the war stories of . . . elderly strangers, finds himself drawing closer to the grandmother whose secrets once seemed lost to him."--New Yorker

"Powerful yet tender . . . real and vibrant. . . . Fishman never loses the reader's trust. No line in this book rings false, no character is unheard, no event seems like a plot device."--Newsweek