Poignant, sharp-eyed, and bitterly funny - the tale of a family struggling to stay together in a country that's rapidly coming apart, by the bestselling author of Super Sad True Love Story and Our Country Friends
'A novel you can read in one sitting that will stay with you forever' Karen Russell
'Very funny, very sad, very sharp, and completely delightful' Elif Batuman
The Bradford-Shmulkin family is falling apart. A very modern blend of Russian, Jewish, Korean, and New England WASP, they love each other deeply but the pressures of life in an unstable America are fraying their bonds. There's Daddy, a struggling, cash-thirsty editor whose Russian heritage gives him a surprising new currency in the upside-down world of 21st century geopolitics; his wife, Anne Mom, a progressive, underfunded blue blood from Boston who's barely holding the household together; their son, Dylan, whose blond hair and Mayflower lineage give him pride of place in the newly forming American political order; and, above all, the young Vera, half-Jewish, half-Korean, and wholly original.
Observant, sensitive, and always writing down new vocabulary words, Vera wants only three things in life: a friend at school; Daddy and Anne Mom to stay together; and to meet her birth mother, Mom Mom, who will at last tell Vera the secret of who she really is and how to ensure love's survival in this great, mad, imploding world.
Both biting and deeply moving, Vera, or Faith is a boldly imagined story of family and country told through the clear and wondrous eyes of a child. With a nod to What Maisie Knew, Henry James's classic story of parents, children, and the dark ironies of a rapidly transforming society, Gary Shteyngart's newest novel is among his best and shows why, in the words of Jonathan Safran Foer, he is 'a national treasure'.
About the Author
Gary Shteyngart was born in Leningrad in 1972 and came to the United States seven years later. His debut novel, The Russian Debutante's Handbook, won the Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction and the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction. His second novel, Absurdistan, was named one of the 10 Best Books of the Year by The New York Times Book Review. His novel Super Sad True Love Story won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize and became one of the most iconic novels of the decade. His memoir, Little Failure, was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist and a New York Times bestseller. His most recent novel, Our Country Friends, was also a New York Times bestseller. His books regularly appear on best-of lists around the world and have been published in thirty countries. He has worked on several television shows, including HBO's Succession and The Regime. He lives in New York with his wife and son.
Industry Reviews
'Vera, or Faith is a novel that you can read in one sitting that will stay with you forever. Gary Shteyngart's sentences are works of art, and his humor feels medicinal at this turbulent hour in our fractured America. Vera instantly became one of my favorite child narrators, and her lucid bewilderment is by turns poignant, funny, and wise. Vera's story is at once signature Shteyngart-laugh-out-loud funny and stylistically daring-while also breaking new ground. I loved this heartfelt and vulnerable exploration of the secret cargo that Vera must carry, the detective work that she must do to piece together her social reality and family history, and the howl of grief and love at this novel's heart.' - Karen Russell, Pulitzer Prize finalist and New York Times bestselling author of Swamplandia!
'Vera, or Faith is very funny, very sad, very sharp, and completely delightful-peak Shteyngart!' - Elif Batuman, Pulitzer Prize finalist and international bestselling author of The Idiot and Either/Or
'In its swirls of emotion, its humor, its pathos, and the unsparing humanity of its vision, Vera, or Faith is like some fabulous, hitherto-unknown creature that's been let out of its bottle and set free. It begins to seem that there's nothing Gary Shteyngart can't do.' -Michael Cunningham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Day and The Hours
'I consider myself a Gary Shteyngart superfan, but he has outdone himself with the charming, hilarious, and deeply moving Vera, or Faith. Vera is everything I want in a character-funny, curious, wise, and wildly original. She'll make you laugh, break your heart, and fill you with hope, all at the same time.? She's easily one of my favorite characters? in fiction, and this is now one of my favorite novels.' - Angie Kim, New York Times bestselling author of Happiness Falls and Miracle Creek
