First published 2019
Barry Cohen's world collapses at a dinner party when his insider trading scandal becomes public knowledge. The master of the universe grabs his collection of six designer watches, abandons his beautiful young wife and son in New York City, and boards a Greyhound bus heading south. He travels through Trump's America on a journey he never prepared for, zigzagging toward Texas with one goal in mind. Barry wants to find his old college girlfriend and convince her to give him another chance at happiness. The bus carries him through a country he barely recognizes, filled with people whose lives couldn't be more different from his privileged Manhattan existence. His quest becomes both a flight from consequence and a search for redemption. Gary Shteyngart follows Barry's chaotic journey as he confronts the gap between his expectations and reality, between the America he thought he knew and the one he discovers on the road.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, contemporary, 21st-century
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, second-chance
Setting: New York City, Texas
Period: Contemporary
352 pages · Paperback · PENGUIN