I first heard about Grant's newest novel on NPR, a favorite place for book reviews. Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, The Clothes on Their Backs is the story of Vivien Kovacs as she struggles to figure out her identity and place in modern London. She is the daughter of Hungarian refugee immigrants who have chosen to live very quiet, almost invisible lives constantly fearful that there will be trouble for them in the new world. At the story's center is her father's brother, himself an immigrant, but with an entirely different approach to life. He lives large, gets caught up in a landlord scandal and in Vivien's father's eyes, brings disgrace to the family. Against her father's deepest wishes, Vivien develops a secret relationship with her uncle taking a job as a personal assistant recording and transcribing the story of his life. The tension in the story arises as the uncle and niece do a little identity dance, pretending that each does not know the true identity of the other. As Vivien listens to her uncle's account of his life, she wonders if he knows who she really is, while at the same time discovers the dark secrets of her family that her parents have kept hidden. The book recounts her memories of the time spent as a child and later with her uncle, told from the perspective of middle age in a London reeling from the bombings of 2006. Like peeling away the layers of the onion, Grant reveals the Kovacs family history, while sensitively dealing with the larger issues of refugees in a new country terrified of political and social persecution, and the complicated relationships between family members who refuse to accept one another's reality. I give this book a solid thumbs up. ~Wendee