Super Sad True Love Story
A Novel
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4.0 • 229 Ratings
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • WINNER OF BOLLINGER EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE PRIZE FOR COMIC FICTION
The uncannily prescient (and deliciously dark) tale of America’s dysfunctional near future—and the timeless, tender feelings that just might bring us back from the brink, by the bestselling author of The Sensualist
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
The New York Times • The Washington Post • The Boston Globe • San Francisco Chronicle • The Seattle Times • O: The Oprah Magazine • Maureen Corrigan, NPR • Salon • Slate • Minneapolis Star Tribune • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • The Kansas City Star • Charlotte Observer • The Globe and Mail • Vancouver Sun • Montreal Gazette • Kirkus Reviews
In America's near future, young people are feeling crushed by financial crisis, the oppression of social media, a military adventure in Venezuela, and an incoming tide of fascism. Meanwhile, the middle aged are chasing elixirs of youth and our patient Chinese creditors may just be ready to foreclose on the whole mess. Then Lenny Abramov, son of a Russian immigrant janitor and ardent fan of “printed, bound media artifacts” (aka books), meets Eunice Park, a mesmerizing, unpredictable Korean American with a major in Images and a minor in Assertiveness. Could falling in love redeem a country falling apart?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Shteyngart (Absurdistan) presents another profane and dizzying satire, a dystopic vision of the future as convincing and, in its way, as frightening as Cormac McCarthy s The Road. It s also a pointedly old-fashioned May-December love story, complete with references to Chekhov and Tolstoy. Mired in protracted adolescence, middle-aged Lenny Abramov is obsessed with living forever (he works for an Indefinite Life Extension company), his books (an anachronism of this indeterminate future), and Eunice Park, a 20-something Korean-American. Eunice, though reluctant and often cruel, finds in Lenny a loving but needy fellow soul and a refuge from her overbearing immigrant parents. Narrating in alternate chapters Lenny through old-fashioned diary entries, Eunice through her online correspondence the pair reveal a funhouse-mirror version of contemporary America: terminally indebted to China, controlled by the singular Bipartisan Party (Big Brother as played by a cartoon otter in a cowboy hat), and consumed by the superficial. Shteyngart s earnestly struggling characters along with a flurry of running gags keep the nightmare tour of tomorrow grounded. A rich commentary on the obsessions and catastrophes of the information age and a heartbreaker worthy of its title, this is Shteyngart s best yet.
Customer Reviews
So original!
I finished this book about 3 months ago and I can't stop thinking about it. Maybe it has something to do with current events, but it seems like the world this book takes place in is not so far off from where we're headed. On the other hand, this book is like nothing else I've ever read. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for something fresh and thought provoking in their fiction. It's a completely original work that sticks with you.
Incredible satire, of self, of nature, and of contemporary society
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Phenomenal fiction
Gary's third novel is a significant read in contemporary fiction that causes tears and laughs, sometimes simultaneously.