Shteyngart is one of the funniest living novelists, so much so that he once (gently) insulted me at a book signing over a decade ago, and I took it as a compliment. In Vera, he twists words to his will with (if you’ll pardon the obvious, Russian immigré cliché, especially in a book named after the man’s wife) Nabakovian genius. With a neurotic, precocious ten year old protagonist as the vehicle through which we view the unfolding of a dystopian near-future; a manic, pants-dropping younger brother for comic relief (“the family psychiatrist had to periodically check Dylan for ADHD as if for lice”), and a father and step-mother combo keeping things on track (until they don’t), Shteyngart does what he does best: identifying and skewering the signifiers of liberal, middle-class comfort (a class to which he himself undoubtedly belongs). Thus copies of The Power Broker are faced out to impress guests, the tension between wanting your kids’ grades not to matter whilst, of course, desperately wanting them to get straight A’s is ever-present, and empathy for those trying to deny our existence is a must. All of which makes this slim novel sound heavy and imposing, when in fact it reads like a breeze; funny, touching, educational, and filled with sly linguistic and cultural winks – all the things us liberal, middle-class intelligentsia love!
Vera, or Faith by Gary Shteyngart, (List Price: $28, Random House, 9780593595091, July 2025)
Reviewed by Doron Klemer, Octavia Books in New Orleans, Louisiana