Gary Shteyngart - Little Failure

I chant the words and he says “Amen” after each stanza.

I chant the gibberish backwards and forwards, tripping over the words, mangling them, making them sound more Russian, more American, more holy. We haven’t found my grandfather’s name, Isaac, amidst the acres of marble covered with Ivans and Nikolais and Alexanders. But the sun shines generously. Cows are mooing and grass is being mowed. A small airplane, surely our heraldic symbol, is landing nearby. This part I know well.

Ve’imru, Amen .

Let us say, Amen.

: AMEH!

*He was forty.

AND I THOUGHT writing novels was hard.

The task of sailing into the past was made that much easier by David Ebershoff, my editor, who knew exactly when to furl and unfurl the sails, if that’s the right metaphor. (Is it? Or is it trim the sails? I wish I were Waspier.) I also want to thank everyone at Random House for their continued belief that I’m an okay guy and writer, including Gina Centrello, Susan Kamil, Barbara Fillon, Maria Braeckel, Sally Marvin, Denise Cronin, Joelle Dieu, Rachel Kind, and Toby Ernst. My agent, Denise Shannon, continues to keep me solvent and is a terrific reader to boot. My thanks to Dmitry Dolinsky for his expert help with what they call a “flash drive.” Patricia Kim took many photos of me wearing a toga.

So many people volunteered their time to remind me of what had happened during the 1980s and early 1990s, a time period many of us are trying to forget. They include Jonathan, J.Z., Ben, Brian, Leo, Maris, and Jessica.

Finally, my parents provided enough stories to fill several volumes and were kind and patient enough not only to answer all my nagging questions but to accompany me to Russia for a week of fish pie and remembrance. I would also like to thank all my “first responders,” people who took the time out to read early drafts of this book and offer advice: Doug Choi, Andrew Lewis Conn, Rebecca Godfrey, Lisa Hahn, Cathy Park Hong, Gabe Hudson, Binnie Kirshenbaum, Paul La Farge, Christine Suewon Lee, Kelly Malloy, Jynne Dilling Martin, Caitlin McKenna, Suketu Mehta, John Saffron, and John “Rosencranz” Wray.

Portions of this work appeared in the following publications in different form:

Chapter 1: Travel + Leisure, The New York Times, The New Yorker

Chapter 2: New York

Chapter 4: Travel + Leisure; Made in Russia: Unsung Icons of Soviet Design , edited by Michael Idov (Rizzoli); The Threepenny Review

Chapter 6: The New Yorker

Chapter 7: an essay first published privately and then in New York magazine’s My First New York (Ecco); The Threepenny Review

Chapter 8: The Threepenny Review, The New Yorker

Chapter 9: The Threepenny Review

Chapter 10: The Threepenny Review, Granta

Chapter 11: Gourmet, The New York Times Magazine, The Threepenny Review

Chapter 12: The New Yorker, The Threepenny Review

Chapter 13: The New Yorker

Chapter 14: The Threepenny Review

Chapter 15: The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker

Chapter 16: The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker

Chapter 17: The New York Times Magazine

Chapter 18: The New York Times Magazine

Chapter 21: GQ

Chapter 23: GQ, Granta, The New Yorker

Chapter 24: GQ, The New Yorker, Travel + Leisure

GARY SHTEYNGART was born in Leningrad in 1972 and came to the United States seven years later. He is the author of the novels Super Sad True Love Story (2010), Absurdistan (2006), and The Russian Debutante’s Handbook (2002), and the memoir Little Failure. Super Sad True Love Story won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize and was selected as one of the best books of the year by more than forty news journals and magazines around the world. Absurdistan was chosen as one of the ten best books of the year by The New York Times Book Review and Time magazine. The Russian Debutante’s Handbook won the Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction and the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction. His fiction and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Esquire, GQ, Travel + Leisure, The New York Times Magazine , and many other publications. His work has been translated into twenty-eight languages.

Gary Shteyngart is available for select readings and lectures. To inquire about a possible appearance, please contact the Random House Speakers Bureau at 212-572-2013 or rhspeakers@randomhouse.com.