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and for the ground of a child's identity.
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This story has been told many times
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by the time Foer is writing this novel.
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In addition, most of these prior versions in fiction,
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and some in memoir,
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have to do with the first-generation American experience.
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So, Foer finds himself belated in two ways:
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one, because the story of the Holocaust
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and of finding out that secret has already been told;
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and two, because he's not second generation.
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He's not the child of a survivor
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but the grandchild of a survivor.