The Genius under the Table: Growing up behind the Iron Curtain

In this memoir, young Yevgeny grows up with his Jewish family in a single room in Leningrad during the Cold War. He sleeps on a cot beneath the table and secretly borrows his father’s pencil to draw each night. His father loves poetry, while his mother loves beauty and dance and hopes Yevgeny will succeed at ballet. He agrees to try it but knows he has no talent for dance. His parents worry about his future until his father finds the drawings covering the underside of the table and calls him a genius.