Status
Available
Genres
Publication
Random House (2021), Edition: First Edition, 336 pages
Description
"It's March 2020 and a calamity is unfolding. A group of friends and friends-of-friends gathers in a country house to wait out the pandemic. Over the next few months new bonds of friendship and love will take hold, while old betrayals will emerge among this unlikely cast of characters, each richly drawn and achingly human: a Russian-born novelist; his Russian-born psychiatrist wife; their precocious child obsessed with K-pop; a struggling Indian American writer; a wildly successful Korean American app developer; a global dandy with three passports; a young flame-thrower of an essayist, originally from the Carolinas; and a movie star, The Actor, whose arrival upsets the equilibrium of this chosen family"--
User reviews
LibraryThing member Narshkite
This started out slow for me, and to be honest it stayed slow (Shteyngart is generally pretty frenetic) but this was slow in a Tolstoyian/Chekovian way which I like just fine. I ended up adoring this pandemic Uncle Vanya with loving and explicit nods to The Big Chill and in my opinion clear
The book centers on a Covid house party of sorts organized by successful, but financially struggling, writer Sasha Senderovsky. (I always assume Shteyngart is writing some aspect of himself in his main characters, but no character in his fiction has seemed so clearly a Shteyngart avatar as Sasha.) Sasha's wife Masha, a psychiatrist, is terrified by and obsessed with Covid. The couple has recently left the city and moved to a rural area near a college town in upstate New York where they have built outbuildings so they can have their city friends surrounding them and avoid rubbing elbows with actual rural people whom they assume are all undereducated, gun-toting, Trump-loving white supremacists. For Covid lockdown they choose to surround themselves with Sasha's three best friends, as well as a writer who studied with Sasha and is currently enjoying some fame for writing a book about being raised poor white trash (see eg Hillbilly Elegy but this author is just a low-key racist, not a right wing propagandist like JD Vance.) Also invited is a famous actor working on a miniseries treatment with Sasha (who I am pretty sure is David Duchovny with a soupcon of James Franco.) Like all of us they assumed lockdown would last for a short time and then realized it was not ending any time soon. There is lots of drama, lots of sex (some gross some not, but all a bit more elemental than I generally enjoy reading about), lots of food and alcohol, lots of weird shifting relationships filled with betrayal and lust and love and reconciliation, lots of analysis of masculinity among ostensibly feminist men, and lots of levels of privilege.
This is a very literary book, in the sense that much of it is essentially a literary salon (until, as they say in The Real World "people stop being polite and start getting real.") This is a very New York book. This is a very Jewish book. This is a very American book. That checks a boatload of boxes for me, but if you have antipathy toward, or simply a lack of interest in, literary Jewish New Yorkers, this is not going to work for you. Also, he really drags the borough in which I reside, so if you love Queens expect to be irked. Extra points for ending in my favorite Filipino restaurant -- he doesn't name it, but I am about 95% sure it is my beloved Jeepny! (Now sadly closed and I sorely miss their banana ribs.) Thanks Gary! A Jeepny memorial is a worthy choice.
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connections to Les Liaisons Dangereuses and the Pedro season of The Real World: San Francisco.The book centers on a Covid house party of sorts organized by successful, but financially struggling, writer Sasha Senderovsky. (I always assume Shteyngart is writing some aspect of himself in his main characters, but no character in his fiction has seemed so clearly a Shteyngart avatar as Sasha.) Sasha's wife Masha, a psychiatrist, is terrified by and obsessed with Covid. The couple has recently left the city and moved to a rural area near a college town in upstate New York where they have built outbuildings so they can have their city friends surrounding them and avoid rubbing elbows with actual rural people whom they assume are all undereducated, gun-toting, Trump-loving white supremacists. For Covid lockdown they choose to surround themselves with Sasha's three best friends, as well as a writer who studied with Sasha and is currently enjoying some fame for writing a book about being raised poor white trash (see eg Hillbilly Elegy but this author is just a low-key racist, not a right wing propagandist like JD Vance.) Also invited is a famous actor working on a miniseries treatment with Sasha (who I am pretty sure is David Duchovny with a soupcon of James Franco.) Like all of us they assumed lockdown would last for a short time and then realized it was not ending any time soon. There is lots of drama, lots of sex (some gross some not, but all a bit more elemental than I generally enjoy reading about), lots of food and alcohol, lots of weird shifting relationships filled with betrayal and lust and love and reconciliation, lots of analysis of masculinity among ostensibly feminist men, and lots of levels of privilege.
This is a very literary book, in the sense that much of it is essentially a literary salon (until, as they say in The Real World "people stop being polite and start getting real.") This is a very New York book. This is a very Jewish book. This is a very American book. That checks a boatload of boxes for me, but if you have antipathy toward, or simply a lack of interest in, literary Jewish New Yorkers, this is not going to work for you. Also, he really drags the borough in which I reside, so if you love Queens expect to be irked. Extra points for ending in my favorite Filipino restaurant -- he doesn't name it, but I am about 95% sure it is my beloved Jeepny! (Now sadly closed and I sorely miss their banana ribs.) Thanks Gary! A Jeepny memorial is a worthy choice.
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LibraryThing member browner56
It is March 2020 and the frightening pandemic that is about to seize the whole world is just gaining momentum. Eight people leave New York City to isolate themselves upstate at an enclave of cabins owned by Sasha Senderovsky, a Russian-born novelist of middling renown. All eight people, including
Our Country Friends strives to be a lot of things at once: a new take on the Russian novel (indeed, it is billed as being “Chekov on the Hudson”), a modern version of the “escape the plague with humor and style” tale established in the The Decameron about 700 years ago, a fresh look at the bonds that tie people together or split them apart, as well as an examination of the complex nature of both loving and betraying those closest to us. To some extent, author Gary Shteyngart succeeds in weaving these diverse threads together into a reasonably coherent story and his writing is frequently engaging, if not quite as funny as it was probably intended to be. Still, this was not a book that resonated strongly with me and I found myself having to press to the end as not enough really happens in the narrative to justify its length.
The main problem with the novel is that while the setting is certainly universal—we all had to live through exactly the same crisis, after all—the characters are not. In fact, their various maladies, neuroses, and past experiences were so specific that I suspect only a few readers will find them to be highly relatable. This was not, then, an all-encompassing tale capable of binding together everyone’s own experience during the pandemic. Also, there were loose plot lines in the novel that were quite distracting, such as the menacing pickup truck that frequently appears but is never fully explained—perhaps the author simply chose to ignore the dramatic principle of Chekhov’s gun—and The Actor, the character most responsible for bringing tension to the collective, just disappears without his story being resolved. Consequently, this is not a book that I can recommend without considerable reservation.
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his wife Masha and adopted daughter Natasha, are connected to Sasha in some way and a few of them have been friends for most of their lives. Once in the country, the colonists (as they call themselves) pass about six months in varying levels of tranquility and conflict, as myriad romances spring up and die, old wounds and insecurities are reopened, professional lives are challenged, and, most of all, boredom sets in. The end of the story finds a depleted group returning to the city to try to reestablish their lives in what will amount to the new normal. Our Country Friends strives to be a lot of things at once: a new take on the Russian novel (indeed, it is billed as being “Chekov on the Hudson”), a modern version of the “escape the plague with humor and style” tale established in the The Decameron about 700 years ago, a fresh look at the bonds that tie people together or split them apart, as well as an examination of the complex nature of both loving and betraying those closest to us. To some extent, author Gary Shteyngart succeeds in weaving these diverse threads together into a reasonably coherent story and his writing is frequently engaging, if not quite as funny as it was probably intended to be. Still, this was not a book that resonated strongly with me and I found myself having to press to the end as not enough really happens in the narrative to justify its length.
The main problem with the novel is that while the setting is certainly universal—we all had to live through exactly the same crisis, after all—the characters are not. In fact, their various maladies, neuroses, and past experiences were so specific that I suspect only a few readers will find them to be highly relatable. This was not, then, an all-encompassing tale capable of binding together everyone’s own experience during the pandemic. Also, there were loose plot lines in the novel that were quite distracting, such as the menacing pickup truck that frequently appears but is never fully explained—perhaps the author simply chose to ignore the dramatic principle of Chekhov’s gun—and The Actor, the character most responsible for bringing tension to the collective, just disappears without his story being resolved. Consequently, this is not a book that I can recommend without considerable reservation.
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LibraryThing member Clara53
At times cynical, at times poignant, at times hilarious and downright crazy, this novel is filled with authentic images throughout, as satire and sarcasm unite in this gamut of raw emotions, a sweep of contradictory feelings belonging to the unpredictable combination of main characters. The
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bitter-sweet, nostalgic, immigrant-related flashbacks will resonate with so many of us as well (myself included). I felt like everything was put on the table here and exposed - subject-wise. Plus, for me, it was the first time the pandemic was mentioned in a fiction book - as the plot is developing through spring/summer/fall of 2020 - and so it was sort of surreal, too... One of Gary Shteyngart's best!... Show Less
LibraryThing member Cats57
I will recommend this book to anyone who already loves and understands this author. I was very excited when this ARC became available because, to my knowledge, there are no other books out there yet that are pretty much all about Covid and the friends and family who get trapped together because of
Apparently, I do not have the type of sense of humor needed for this book, nor do I have the education for it. I am not as politically correct as one needs to be to read this book.
Endless run-on sentences, dislikeable characters, bigotry, prejudice, and out-and-out babble predominates what I have managed to read.
I am done. Covid has made life too difficult to force myself to finish something this painful.
*ARC provided by the publisher.
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it.Apparently, I do not have the type of sense of humor needed for this book, nor do I have the education for it. I am not as politically correct as one needs to be to read this book.
Endless run-on sentences, dislikeable characters, bigotry, prejudice, and out-and-out babble predominates what I have managed to read.
I am done. Covid has made life too difficult to force myself to finish something this painful.
*ARC provided by the publisher.
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LibraryThing member nivramkoorb
I have read 3 of Shteyngart's novels and for the most part I enjoy them. He has a good command of detailed prose with a probing of the character's inner thoughts etc. His books are satirical and usually somewhat funny. This book received a lot of good reviews because it is timely in that it deals
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with characters coming together to isolate during March-September 2020. The book centers around Sasha Senderovsky a novelist/teacher of Russian origin with some level of renown but currently having difficulties. He gathers himself and 7 other people to his home in the Hudson Valley to wait out a hopefully quick Pandemic. It is a diverse cast of characters, including his wife, adopted 8 year old daughter, 2 life long friends, along with a student, another friend, and "the actor". You spend time in each characters head which led to constant shifting of mood. It was an ambitious book which dealt with almost too many issues. To me the characters were not relatable which is okay but given that they all were, it made it hard to connect. Beware of books by popular authors whose hype exceeds their actual product. I fear that Shteyngart, who is constantly plugging other authors books is one those. Not a bad read but it is certainly not a masterpiece as per the NY times. Show Less
LibraryThing member linda.a.
I must admit that for the first few chapters of this novel I did wonder whether I’d be able to bear to spend more than three hundred pages in the company of a group of such apparently neurotic, narcissistic and over-privileged people! For quite some time the only character I felt any investment
Although we don’t get to know much in detail about the local community, through his numerous references to a black pickup, driven by a mysterious man who appears to be intent on observing what’s going on in the ‘colony’, to pro-Trump slogans on car bumpers, to some locals sporting white supremacist tattoos and, in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, a proliferation of ‘Blue Lives Matter’ banners, the author very powerfully portrayed how the omnipresent fear of the virus wasn’t the only thing which felt threatening to this group of ‘escapees’ from the city.
Explorations of racism, the experiences faced not only immigrants but by anyone who, for whatever reason, feels displaced or different, as well as reflections on marriage, family, parenting, friendship, love, loss, betrayal and the often-insidious nature of social media, are just some of the themes which made this such a thought-provoking and, at times, disturbing story. However, although it was sometimes uncomfortable to be reminded just how scary and unpredictable those early months of the pandemic were, those moments were leavened by the author’s dark humour and his use of satire to poke (mostly!) gentle fun at the self-obsessed, frequently foolish and irrational aspects of the behaviour of some of his characters.
Threaded through the story are numerous allusions to Russian literature, particularly Chekov’s ‘Uncle Vanya’ and for anyone familiar with that play, noticing the parallels between its plot and this contemporary drama is unavoidable! In many ways the scene is set from the outset because the novel opens with a ‘Dramatis Personae’ to introduce the eight main characters and ‘Various American Villagers’. Then, rather than Chapter 1, the cast list is followed by ‘Act One’ (just like the play, the novel is divided into four ‘Acts’), immediately suggesting that the story will draw the reader into a theatrically unfolding drama. As Chekov’s play is a firm favourite of mine, I really enjoyed the author’s metaphorical use of it throughout his storytelling and when, towards the end, his characters put on a performance of it and I found that entirely syntonic, I realised just how successfully he had evoked the various parallels!
Another literary allusion I enjoyed was that he named one of his characters Dee Cameron, immediately bringing to mind Boccaccio’s The Decameron, written in the fourteenth century and featuring a group of ten young aristocrats who flee to the countryside from Florence in an attempt to escape the Black Death … although their stay was just ten days rather than the six months endured by the characters in Shteyngart’s story!
Considering the wide range of themes it embraces, the world of social, cultural, racial and political division it depicts, as well as the author’s particular writing-style, I think this novel would be an interesting choice for book clubs … I’m sure it would generate some very interesting, possibly even heated, discussions!
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in was the delightfully funny and intensely serious Nat, whose obsessions with BTS, a Korean boy band, and watching Japanese reality shows on TV, furthered my education in two ways – by introducing me to K-pop as well as opening my eyes to the differences in tone between Japanese and Western reality-TV shows! However, the author’s ability to combine acutely satirical observations about his characters’ behaviour, with gradual revelations which offered insights into the roots of it, enabled me to feel enough empathy to begin to feel more engaged with them. I don’t want to introduce spoilers by going into any detail about their personal histories or the changing nature of the interactions between them, suffice it to say that during the course of the six months they spend together in self-imposed isolation there are numerous examples of long-held secrets being exposed, old resentments surfacing, old scores being settled, new alliances being formed and new sexual relationships being started – and finished! Although we don’t get to know much in detail about the local community, through his numerous references to a black pickup, driven by a mysterious man who appears to be intent on observing what’s going on in the ‘colony’, to pro-Trump slogans on car bumpers, to some locals sporting white supremacist tattoos and, in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, a proliferation of ‘Blue Lives Matter’ banners, the author very powerfully portrayed how the omnipresent fear of the virus wasn’t the only thing which felt threatening to this group of ‘escapees’ from the city.
Explorations of racism, the experiences faced not only immigrants but by anyone who, for whatever reason, feels displaced or different, as well as reflections on marriage, family, parenting, friendship, love, loss, betrayal and the often-insidious nature of social media, are just some of the themes which made this such a thought-provoking and, at times, disturbing story. However, although it was sometimes uncomfortable to be reminded just how scary and unpredictable those early months of the pandemic were, those moments were leavened by the author’s dark humour and his use of satire to poke (mostly!) gentle fun at the self-obsessed, frequently foolish and irrational aspects of the behaviour of some of his characters.
Threaded through the story are numerous allusions to Russian literature, particularly Chekov’s ‘Uncle Vanya’ and for anyone familiar with that play, noticing the parallels between its plot and this contemporary drama is unavoidable! In many ways the scene is set from the outset because the novel opens with a ‘Dramatis Personae’ to introduce the eight main characters and ‘Various American Villagers’. Then, rather than Chapter 1, the cast list is followed by ‘Act One’ (just like the play, the novel is divided into four ‘Acts’), immediately suggesting that the story will draw the reader into a theatrically unfolding drama. As Chekov’s play is a firm favourite of mine, I really enjoyed the author’s metaphorical use of it throughout his storytelling and when, towards the end, his characters put on a performance of it and I found that entirely syntonic, I realised just how successfully he had evoked the various parallels!
Another literary allusion I enjoyed was that he named one of his characters Dee Cameron, immediately bringing to mind Boccaccio’s The Decameron, written in the fourteenth century and featuring a group of ten young aristocrats who flee to the countryside from Florence in an attempt to escape the Black Death … although their stay was just ten days rather than the six months endured by the characters in Shteyngart’s story!
Considering the wide range of themes it embraces, the world of social, cultural, racial and political division it depicts, as well as the author’s particular writing-style, I think this novel would be an interesting choice for book clubs … I’m sure it would generate some very interesting, possibly even heated, discussions!
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LibraryThing member novelcommentary
Our Country Friends was a pleasure to read; I spent 10 days reliving life in the pandemic in a New York State county retreat designed to be reminiscent of a Russian Dacha. Sasha Senderovsky is a once famous author and retired college professor who decides to flee the city and invite a group of
Shteyngart wrote this while he himself was in lockdown and experienced his own back to nature insights that were common occurrences in a world forced to take walks and reflect on life. I've read only one other novel of his but would look into others.
Lines
“I think he still loves you,” she said to Karen carelessly. “Loves me?” Karen said. “I don’t think Vinod is that predictable.” But she thought it would be fine if he did. And sad if he did not. The last consistent flame in her life extinguished.
Vinod waved to Ed. The two men were curious friends, the way two dogs set off leash can sometimes run parallel to each other for infinite distances without sharing a glance.
Because she was tall and her face angular, her eyes a repository for a deep alien blue, she knew the boots and something simple like a peasant blouse would bring out a host of Pavlovian reactions in a wide cross section of educated East Coast men. All she had to do was open her mouth and confuse the situation.
Senderovsky was rushing toward him in what looked like Hasidic dress, his lips wine purple, the remaining tufts of his untrimmed hair leaning oddly to the side like a stegosaurus at rest.
But he had to think like a character in a Chekhov play, forever taunted by desires but trapped in a life much too small to accommodate the entirety of a human being. That was why Chekhov was eternally beloved. There were no dashing personages in his works galloping toward an end point like the Actor’s renown or Karen’s algorithm, only vanishing horizons, only overgrown meadows from which one could look above and try to discern misted landscapes.
Like a fool, he had carried those words in the little purse he had sewn beneath his heart as a child, a repository of all the American words his parents would never utter.
That last gesture caught the Actor unaware, and he felt himself slackening with the onslaught of unexplained but often useful sadness that he used as a placeholder for love.
Traveling birds—warblers?—would invade a tree, ravish it with their chirping, and then abandon it just as quickly and for no discernible reason, like bored American tourists at an ancient historical site.
It was clear to all that he was experiencing technical difficulties: His hair had been cut professionally, but it flamed above him like a torch at a failed Olympics, and his eyes had the dimmed luster of dead coral clothed in a mist of algae.
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friends to his compound of bungalows. The guests include his best friends since high school, Vinod and Karen. Another wealthy friend from college, a former attractive female student and a famous actor who is collaborating with Sasha on a screenplay- are all invited to spend some secluded time with Sasha, his wife Masha and their daughter Natalie. After a night testing out Karen's TruEmotions app that has made her rich, the actor and Natalie begin a relationship. During the course of the months ahead many complications will ensue with the group. The book is both funny and poignant as we get to weave in and out of the minds of this diverse collection of characters . "Here Shteyngart uses a 19th-century-style omniscience, moving from mind to mind within a scene (and, like Tolstoy, even occasionally inhabiting the minds of animals) while drawing back and commenting to the reader from a perspective that none of the characters are privy to. "(NYT). Shteyngart wrote this while he himself was in lockdown and experienced his own back to nature insights that were common occurrences in a world forced to take walks and reflect on life. I've read only one other novel of his but would look into others.
Lines
“I think he still loves you,” she said to Karen carelessly. “Loves me?” Karen said. “I don’t think Vinod is that predictable.” But she thought it would be fine if he did. And sad if he did not. The last consistent flame in her life extinguished.
Vinod waved to Ed. The two men were curious friends, the way two dogs set off leash can sometimes run parallel to each other for infinite distances without sharing a glance.
Because she was tall and her face angular, her eyes a repository for a deep alien blue, she knew the boots and something simple like a peasant blouse would bring out a host of Pavlovian reactions in a wide cross section of educated East Coast men. All she had to do was open her mouth and confuse the situation.
Senderovsky was rushing toward him in what looked like Hasidic dress, his lips wine purple, the remaining tufts of his untrimmed hair leaning oddly to the side like a stegosaurus at rest.
But he had to think like a character in a Chekhov play, forever taunted by desires but trapped in a life much too small to accommodate the entirety of a human being. That was why Chekhov was eternally beloved. There were no dashing personages in his works galloping toward an end point like the Actor’s renown or Karen’s algorithm, only vanishing horizons, only overgrown meadows from which one could look above and try to discern misted landscapes.
Like a fool, he had carried those words in the little purse he had sewn beneath his heart as a child, a repository of all the American words his parents would never utter.
That last gesture caught the Actor unaware, and he felt himself slackening with the onslaught of unexplained but often useful sadness that he used as a placeholder for love.
Traveling birds—warblers?—would invade a tree, ravish it with their chirping, and then abandon it just as quickly and for no discernible reason, like bored American tourists at an ancient historical site.
It was clear to all that he was experiencing technical difficulties: His hair had been cut professionally, but it flamed above him like a torch at a failed Olympics, and his eyes had the dimmed luster of dead coral clothed in a mist of algae.
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LibraryThing member Dreesie
Such a slog. I would never have read this if not for the Tournament of Books--the cover design does no match my taste at all, and neither did the contents.
There were, though, a few sarcastic sentences that were VERY funny. But there are way more cringe-y sections.
Even though I am about the same age
But this read was such as solid 2 stars I changed a couple other reads from 2 stars to 1 because they were so much worse.
There were, though, a few sarcastic sentences that were VERY funny. But there are way more cringe-y sections.
Even though I am about the same age
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as most of these characters, I cannot relate to them at all. They are very New York, very successful and talented, gourmands, and the children of immigrant parents (some are immigrants themselves, but immigration was not their decision). I wonder if readers who have immigrant parents relate more? But this read was such as solid 2 stars I changed a couple other reads from 2 stars to 1 because they were so much worse.
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LibraryThing member albertgoldfain
A dynamic prose-as-drama story in COVID times. Shteyngart must take detailed notes on the peculiarities of his friends...each character was vividly specific. The best parts read like Updike or Carver.
LibraryThing member RidgewayGirl
A group of friends, some of whom know each other well, others who are meeting for the first time, gather at the country home of a novelist from Russia at the start of the pandemic. They stay for weeks. As time passes, old fault lines make themselves known, secrets are revealed and old friendships
Sure, the description sounds like dozens of other books and movies, but Gary Shteyngart is playing with older inspirations from literature. This is a novel that feels superficial, peopled as it is with often ridiculous characters behaving badly, but there's a heart in there, and Shteyngart is such an intelligent author that I couldn't help but become immersed in it.
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change. Sure, the description sounds like dozens of other books and movies, but Gary Shteyngart is playing with older inspirations from literature. This is a novel that feels superficial, peopled as it is with often ridiculous characters behaving badly, but there's a heart in there, and Shteyngart is such an intelligent author that I couldn't help but become immersed in it.
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LibraryThing member LindaLoretz
Eight people are quarantined together in a bungalow colony outside of NYC in the Hudson Valley during the 2020 pandemic. The “cast” includes the owner of the land area, Alexander “Sasha” Senderovsky, a writer, his wife Masha, a psychiatrist, and their adopted daughter Natasha (Nat). Sasha
Other invitees to the small group trying to avoid contracting COVID-19 include Ed Kim, who has three countries’ citizenships, but not the United States. He had been present when Sasha and Masha met and, therefore, a long-term friend; he did most of the cooking for the group. However, Ed was pessimistic, saying things like Nat belonged to “Generation L, for Last.” Also among the group is Vinod, an unpublished writer, and Dee Cameron, Sasha’s former writing student. Then there is the Actor whose name becomes known toward the novel's end.
The Actor, who is ½ Irish ¼ Turkish, and probably Gujarat, enters and exits the story like a performer on stage. He does not have the friendship history with the Senderovskys shared by the others. He was invited to help Sasha write a television script. His interactions with the others seem to show us the ugly face of the world, including online communications and continual buffoonery. The Actor is involved in the guests’ refusal to take pandemic protocols seriously as he is instrumental in promoting a variety of sexual encounters.
The author modeled this story on the plays of Chekhov. Much of it is absurd, satirical, and funny. There is never a dull moment, and there are multiple layers to the interactions and exploits of the players in this story. I am sure I missed some of the societal issues Shteyngart addressed through the characters. Still, news items that surfaced during the pandemic were front and center and played out in relationships, events, and conversations: isolation, volatilities of friendships, social media and its woes, racial discrimination, police violence, television ads as representative of American culture, Asian blame for the pandemic, mask wearers vs. others, and so much more.
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and Masha are Russian Jewish immigrants, and their daughter is from China. Also invited is Karen Cho, a Korean-American app designer who is a longtime friend of the Senderovskys. Nat is obsessed with K-pop, is eager to learn more about Korean culture, and considers Karen an aunt. Interestingly, Karen hasn’t always identified with her own Korean culture.Other invitees to the small group trying to avoid contracting COVID-19 include Ed Kim, who has three countries’ citizenships, but not the United States. He had been present when Sasha and Masha met and, therefore, a long-term friend; he did most of the cooking for the group. However, Ed was pessimistic, saying things like Nat belonged to “Generation L, for Last.” Also among the group is Vinod, an unpublished writer, and Dee Cameron, Sasha’s former writing student. Then there is the Actor whose name becomes known toward the novel's end.
The Actor, who is ½ Irish ¼ Turkish, and probably Gujarat, enters and exits the story like a performer on stage. He does not have the friendship history with the Senderovskys shared by the others. He was invited to help Sasha write a television script. His interactions with the others seem to show us the ugly face of the world, including online communications and continual buffoonery. The Actor is involved in the guests’ refusal to take pandemic protocols seriously as he is instrumental in promoting a variety of sexual encounters.
The author modeled this story on the plays of Chekhov. Much of it is absurd, satirical, and funny. There is never a dull moment, and there are multiple layers to the interactions and exploits of the players in this story. I am sure I missed some of the societal issues Shteyngart addressed through the characters. Still, news items that surfaced during the pandemic were front and center and played out in relationships, events, and conversations: isolation, volatilities of friendships, social media and its woes, racial discrimination, police violence, television ads as representative of American culture, Asian blame for the pandemic, mask wearers vs. others, and so much more.
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LibraryThing member rmarcin
This was the first book by Shteyngart and I had to read it for a literary book club. I didn't know what to expect. I thought the idea to set his novel in 2020 and to highlight the Covid virus was interesting, as many novelists have chosen to ignore this.
The premise of the novel is that Sasha and
The premise of the novel is that Sasha and
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his wife, Masha, along with their daughter, Nat, invite several friends to live with them on their estate, as they make plans to produce a script in which The Actor is to appear. Karen and Vin, along with Ed and Dee, and The Actor all come to live there for a few months. The novel goes through their friendship, their love affairs, and the jealousy that Sasha Senderovsky felt after reading Vinod's novel. Once it is discovered, things change. Show Less
LibraryThing member mjspear
Liked the beginning; lost interest as the story unfolded. The story of "best friends" from college holing up during the pandemic on a country estate sounded promising but too cute by half for this reader.
LibraryThing member steve02476
A lot of funny parts showing people as ridiculous but also as sympathetic characters. Captured some of the early pandemic silliness and real worry.I didn’t really “get” some dream sequences towards the end of the book, but I just read through them anyway.
LibraryThing member fmclellan
I wanted to like this, as it's clever and sort of dazzling, in a writerly pyrotechnics kind of way, but I didn't care one whit about any of the characters. Alas.
Awards
The Morning News Tournament of Books (Play-In Selection — 2022)
The New York Times Notable Books of the Year (Fiction — 2021)
Language
Original language
English
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