Vera, or Faith - Large Print by Gary Shteyngart (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A poignant, sharp-eyed, 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

"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."--The Los Angeles Times
"Shteyngart is one of the best comedians in literature today."--BookPage (starred review)

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK: The New York Times, Time, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Bustle, Vulture, Town & Country, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Book Riot, Publishers Weekly, Literary Hub, AV Club, Hey Alma

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

"Book after book, Shteyngart arrives just where--and when--we need him. . . . 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. . . . Vera, or Faith, tastes at first like a cherry-flavored gumdrop, but it'll burn a hole in your tongue."--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

"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. As the bonds of her blended Russian, Jewish, Korean, and New England WASP family fray, Vera strives to keep them together."--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

"This is my favorite Gary Shteyngart novel ever."--Newsday

"Gary Shteyngart has done it again . . . Vera, or Faith is ultimately a fable, and 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. Vera means "faith" in Russian; Shteyngart makes the case for not entirely losing it."--Bustle

"A brilliant fable about childhood, and so much more, in our broken country . . . Shteyngart's particular flavor of black humor--Russian wry?--reconnects with its roots in sorrow and resistance and becomes essential and lifesaving."--Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"Shteyngart is one of the best comedians in literature today, and like all the great ones, his humor elucidates as much as it amuses. That's especially true of Vera, or Faith . . . Readers will be entertained and unnerved by this brilliant book."--BookPage, starred review

"Vera, or Faith brilliantly inhabits the consciousness of a young girl to produce a story of family and friendship that pleasingly engages the mind as it slowly insinuates its way into the heart . . . 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

"Reliably entertaining and incisive."--The Washington Post

"Gary Shteyngart's deeply moving new novel is the story of one American family's efforts to defy the centrifugal forces pulling them apart. The novel gives us 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. Vera will 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

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

"Shteyngart's reliable prescience and pessimistic wit are on full display in this affecting drama of a slightly more unsettling world than ours."--Publishers Weekly

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. 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.