In 2014, Shoshana Rubin was helping her mother clean out her grandparents' house when she found her late grandfather's diary from 1942. She read it immediately - couldn't put it down - and learned about the days before he had to leave her grandmother - his then-girlfriend - to go off to war. The diary chronicles his first few years in the army and his greatest wish - to go home and keep on living alongside the love of his life. While typing it up to make it easier for family members to read, Shoshana decided her grandfather had an important story to tell and she wanted to share it. So she weaved his diary entries together with her memories of him and a storyline from her own life. The Diary of a Mensch is a story about love in the 1940s vs modern day dating, losing a loved one to dementia, only to get to know him again through a diary he wrote when he was just starting out and learning to live life on one's own terms no matter the circumstances. The diary entries are written by Philip Perlman when he was 22. The story that weaves throughout those entries is mostly true. Some of it is made up.