Vera, or Faith - by Gary Shteyngart (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - A poignant and bitterly funny tale of a family struggling to stay together in a country rapidly coming apart, told through the eyes of their wondrous ten-year-old daughter, by the bestselling author of Super Sad True Love Story and Our Country Friends

LONGLISTED FOR THE JOYCE CAROL OATES PRIZE - A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Time, Washington Post, NPR, Oprah Daily, Vox, Denver Public Library, Seattle Times, The Cap Times, Kirkus Reviews

"Pull up a beach chair: The book of the summer is here. . . . A poignant Harriet the Spy-esque delight."--People (Book of the Week)
"Genius . . . [a] miracle."--The Washington Post
"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
"A brilliant fable about childhood, and so much more, in our broken country."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A must-read."--Los Angeles Times
"Shteyngart is one of the best comedians in literature today."--BookPage (starred review)

The Bradford-Shmulkin family is falling apart. A very modern blend of Russian, Jewish, Korean, and New England WASP, they love one another 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 twenty-first-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 provide 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: to make 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 tender 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, Vera, or Faith demonstrates why Shteyngart is, in the words of The New York Times, "one of his generation's most exhilarating writers."

Review Quotes

"The abiding miracle of Shteyngart's work is that it seems just as timely as a Shouts & Murmurs gag in this week's New Yorker while staying fixed to the timeless absurdity of human life. That dexterity speaks to the range of his sympathy and the depth of his attention."--Ron Charles, The Washington Post

"A sardonic tragicomedy about an anxiety-ridden little girl on a quest to uncover where she really came from."--Time

"A hilarious book."--San Francisco Chronicle

"Vera glitters with irony, rich as buttercream frosting, and flavorful notes of hope . . . Shteyngart keeps it light until he doesn't. The sudden twist is well worth Vera's journey--and ours."--Los Angeles Review of Books

"With echoes of Henry James's What Maisie Knew, Shteyngart returns with a poignant and biting novel told through the eyes of a precocious child, Vera."--The Boston Globe

"Shteyngart's novels are never to be missed, and this one is a timely, emotional look at what our country is on the verge of becoming."--Town & Country

"When cracking open a Gary Shteyngart novel, you know you're in for a good time . . . Prescient, comical, and endearing, Shteyngart delivers a dystopian novel, for once, that won't make you feel too terrible about the future."--Marie Claire

"Shteyngart fans . . . are blessed this summer with a skinny little dream of a book from the comic master."--Newsday

"Gary Shteyngart has done it again. . . . 10-year-old narrator Vera Bradford-Shmulkin is so brilliant, funny, and relatably anxious that, through her, we might become receptive to new and necessary understandings of dystopia."--Bustle

"Combining deep humanity with Gary Shteyngart's customary intelligence and wit, Vera, or Faith is a reminder of why he's a writer whose works are good ones to keep close at hand in challenging times."--Shelf Awareness

"The clever satire, sociopolitical skewering, and nimble wordplay are quintessential Shteyngart. This is another winner from a distinctive voice."--Booklist 

"Shteyngart's work is always saturated with humor and heart, and his latest novel offers a new perspective on one of literature's most prominent subjects: How can a family survive in America?"--Vulture

"an unnerving--and very funny--portrait of America in the near future and an indelible portrait of its ten-year-old heroine, and attests to Shteyngart's magic ability to write in multiple emotional octaves and his gift for both sharp-edged humor and heartfelt tenderness."--Michiko Kakutani, author of The Great Wave

"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

"Vera, or Faith is very funny, very sad, very sharp, and completely delightful--peak Shteyngart!"--Elif Batuman, Pulitzer Prize finalist for The Idiot

"A novel that you can read in one sitting that will stay with you forever . . . Vera instantly became one of my favorite child narrators, and her lucid bewilderment is by turns poignant, funny, and wise."--Karen Russell, Pulitzer Prize finalist for Swamplandia!

"Irresistible . . . I loved it."--Ed Park, Pulitzer Prize finalist for Same Bed Different Dreams

"Shteyngart has outdone himself with the charming, hilarious, and deeply moving Vera, or Faith. 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

"A beautiful, extraordinary, completely brilliant book that is so humane it makes me feel more human."--Joe Weisberg, creator of The Americans

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 one of the The New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of the Year. 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. His most recent novel is the New York Times bestseller Our Country Friends. His books have been published in thirty countries. He lives in New York with his wife and son.