A Life in Pieces.(Brief Article)

A Life in Pieces, by Blake Eskin (Norton; $25.95). This is ostensibly a retelling of the story of Binjamin Wilkomirski, the Swiss musician who deceived the world with a wholly invented "memoir" of a childhood destroyed by the Holocaust. But, while Eskin offers a fascinating portrait of Wilkomirski in all his piteous self-delusion, the real importance of his book lies in its critical look at the broader social and historical forces that allowed his hoax to flourish, including the recovered-memory movement, ...