Louis Begley was fifty-seven when he published his first novel, Wartime Lies, in 1991, four decades after the wartime experiences that he shaped into fiction. Begley had arrived in the United States after the Holocaust, and his novels are written meticulously in English. He also came to American literature after a long, successful career practicing international law. While his later works analyze the consciousness and consciences of the American aristocracy, his first novel dealt directly with the Nazi genocide.

Born Ludwik Begleiter on 6 October 1933 in Stryj, Poland (now part of the Ukraine), Begley survived the Nazi regime by pretending to be Catholic. When his father, a physician in the Polish army, was sent east, six-year-old Ludwik and his mother went into hiding. Reunited with his father after the defeat of Germany, they left Poland in 1946 and settled in New York in 1947, changing the family name to Begley. Louis Begley...