Harvard Book Store Presents:

Gary Shteyngart

presenting
Vera, or Faith: A Novel 
in conversation with Tom Perrotta

Harvard Book Store welcomes Gary Shteyngart—bestselling author of Super Sad True Love Story and Our Country Friends—for a discussion of his new novel Vera, or Faith. He will be joined in conversation by Tom Perrotta —bestselling author of nine works of fiction, including Election andLittle Children, both of which were made into Oscar-nominated films.

Ticketing

Tickets include admission for one and one hardcover copy of Vera, or Faith pre-signed by Gary Shteyngart.

Note: Books bundled with tickets may only be picked up at the venue the night of the event, and cannot be picked up in-store beforehand. Ticket holders who purchased a book-included ticket and are unable to attend the event will be able to pick up their book at Harvard Book Store up to 30 days following the event. This offer expires after 30 days. Please note we cannot guarantee signed copies will be available to ticket holders who do not attend the event.

About Vera, or Faith

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. 

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, to keep Daddy and Anne Mom togethe, 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 Gary Shteyngart is, in the words of The New York Times, “one of his generation’s most original and exhilarating writers.”

Praise for Vera, or Faith

“Shteyngart’s work is always saturated with humor and heart, and his latest novel offers a new perspective on one of literature’s most prominent subjects: How can a family survive in America? . . . Shteyngart is excellent at capturing the difficult places where emotional bonds grow thin even as love remains potent.”—Vulture

“Gary Shteyngart’s deeply moving new novel is the story of one American family’s efforts to defy the centrifugal forces pulling them apart. The novel gives us an unnerving—and very funny—portrait of America in the near future and an indelible portrait of its ten-year-old heroine, and attests to Shteyngart’s magic ability to write in multiple emotional octaves and his gift for both sharp-edged humor and heartfelt tenderness.”—Michiko Kakutani, author of The Great Wave

“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 very funny, very sad, very sharp, and completely delightful—peak Shteyngart!”—Elif Batuman, Pulitzer Prize finalist for The Idiot

“A novel that you can read in one sitting that will stay with you forever . . . Vera instantly became one of my favorite child narrators, and her lucid bewilderment is by turns poignant, funny, and wise.”—Karen Russell, Pulitzer Prize finalist for Swamplandia!

“Irresistible . . . I loved it.”—Ed Park, Pulitzer Prize finalist for Same Bed Different Dreams

“Shteyngart has outdone himself with the charming, hilarious, and deeply moving Vera, or Faith. Vera will 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

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

Bios

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.

Tom Perrotta is the bestselling author of nine works of fiction, including Election and Little Children, both of which were made into Oscar-nominated films, and The Leftovers, which was adapted into a critically acclaimed, Peabody Award-winning HBO series. His other books include Bad Haircut, The Wishbones, Joe College, The Abstinence Teacher, Nine Inches, and his newest, Mrs. Fletcher. His work has been translated into a multitude of languages. Perrotta grew up in New Jersey and lives outside of Boston.

Masking Policy

Masks are encouraged but not required for this event.