Vera, Or Faith

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 classic American road adventure. Gary Shteyngart keeps getting betterLiterary Review
Genius... A miracleWashington Post
Pull up a beach chair: The book of the summer is here... A poignant Harriet the Spy-esque delight People


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. Theres 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 whos 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 loves 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 Jamess classic story of parents, children, and the dark ironies of a rapidly transforming society, Gary Shteyngarts newest novel is among his best and shows why, in the words of Jonathan Safran Foer, he is a national treasure.