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Book Cover for: Vera, or Faith, Gary Shteyngart

Vera, or Faith

Gary Shteyngart

Reader Score

85%

85% of readers

recommend this book

Critic Reviews

Good

Based on 21 reviews on

BookMarks logo
NATIONAL BESTSELLER - 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."--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."

Book Details

  • Publisher: Random House
  • Publish Date: Jul 8th, 2025
  • Pages: 256
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 7.50in - 5.20in - 0.80in - 0.75lb
  • EAN: 9780593595091
  • Categories: LiteraryFamily Life - GeneralComing of Age

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.

Critics’ reviews

Praise for this book

"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 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 for Swamplandia!

"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

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