First published 2014
Gary Shteyngart opens his memoir with a scene from 1979: a small boy in an oversized fur hat steps off a plane at JFK Airport into his new American existence. The former Igor Shteyngart has just arrived from the Soviet Union with his family, trading a gray world for one bursting with color and possibility. But the transition proves brutal. Shteyngart finds himself caught between two incompatible lives: his Soviet home with its familiar rules and his American school with its foreign customs. His parents watch their son become increasingly alien to them. His mother creates a new word for him: "failurchka," meaning little failure. The nickname sticks. Shteyngart navigates the horrors of Hebrew School, stumbles through his first romantic encounters, and eventually returns to visit a homeland that no longer feels like home. Through each misadventure, he searches desperately for acceptance from his family, from romantic partners, and most critically, from himself. His salvation comes through literature and language, the tools that finally allow him to bridge his fractured identity.
Genres: literary-fiction, family-life, coming-of-age, autobiography, biography-memoir
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, identity
Setting: JFK Airport, Soviet Union, United States
Period: 1979
368 pages · Hardcover · Random House