Super Sad True Love Story

Leading the literature industry is Gary Shteyngart, author of two highly praised books, The Russian Debutante's Handbook and Absurdistan. He now sees a wonderfully dark narrative of America's dysfunctional future years—and the ageless and delicate sentiments that just may pull us back from the edge—in his heartwarming and humorous new book.

America is on the verge of collapse as a functionally illiterate nation in the very near future—let's say next Tuesday. But don’t that tell that to poor Lenny Abramov, the thirty-nine-year-old son of an angry Russian immigrant janitor, proud author of what may well be the world’s last diary, and less-proud owner of a bald spot shaped like the great state of Ohio. Even though he works for a company called Post-Human Services, which promises its ultra-wealthy customers immortality, death is obviously pursuing this morsel of a guy who is high in cholesterol. And why not, in any case? Lenny is from a distant century; he finds books (or more accurately, "printed, bound media artifacts") superfluous, despite the fact that most of his contemporaries find them obnoxious and stinky. But even more than books, Lenny loves Eunice Park, an impossibly cute and impossibly cruel twenty-four-year-old Korean American woman who just graduated from Elderbird College with a major in Images and a minor in Assertiveness.

Blistering Eunice puts her Assertiveness minor to use after meeting Lenny on a lengthy vacation in Rome. She shows our "ancient dork" some modern, efficient teeth-brushing techniques and forces him to purchase a cottony, nonflammable outfit. However, America shows less resistance to fire than Lenny's new threads. The nation is engulfed in a financial crisis, riots erupt in Central Park, National Guard tanks are stationed at every intersection, the dollar is at an all-time low, and our patient Chinese creditors could be about to foreclose on the whole disaster. Unfazed, Lenny swears to adore Eunice and his own country. He's going to persuade his fickle new love that being a true human being still has value in a world devoid of standards and stability, where singles can instantly assess a potential partner's "hotness" and "sustainability," where the affluent may live forever but the unfortunate will pass away far too soon.

Super Sad True Love Story is a brilliant book written by a young master that is very witty, rich, and compassionate. It tells the story of how falling in love may save a world that is about to end.