First published 2011
Lenny Abramov watches his world collapse from his Lower East Side apartment. The son of Russian immigrants, he works for a nonprofit helping elderly Russian Jews while ICE agents hunt down undocumented residents throughout New York. His relationship with Eunice Park, a young Korean American woman, offers escape from his mounting anxieties about deportation and financial ruin. As economic crisis grips the country and civil liberties disappear, Lenny clings to hopes of obtaining a green card through marriage. But Eunice has her own complicated relationship with her traditional parents and uncertain feelings about their future together. Set against the backdrop of an increasingly authoritarian America, their romance unfolds amid book burnings, government surveillance, and social upheaval that transforms the familiar landscape of contemporary New York into something unrecognizable.
Genres: dystopia, american-fiction, contemporary, 21st-century
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family
Setting: Lower East Side, New York
Period: Contemporary
398 pages · Paperback · Yediot Ahronot Books
Content warnings: anxiety, depression