My Grandmother's Braid

From the acclaimed author of THE HOTTEST DISHES OF THE TARTAR CUISINE — "a cruel comic romp ends as a surprisingly winning story of hardship and resilience" (The New Yorker).
Max lives with his grandparents in a residential home for refugees in Germany. When his grandmother—a terrifying, stubborn matriarch and a former Russian primadonna—moved them from the Motherland it was in search of a better life. But she is not at all pleased with how things are run in Germany; the doctors and teachers are incompetent, the food is toxic, the German are generally untrustworthy.
His grandmother has been telling Max that he is an incompeotnet, clueless weakling since he was a child and she'd spend the day sitting in the back of his classroom to be sure he came to no harm. While he may be a dolt in his grandmother's eyes, Max is bright enough to notice that his stoic and taciturn grandfather has fallen hopelessly in love with their neighbor, Nina....