Our Country Friends by Gary Shteyngart
Eight friends, one country house, four romances, and six months in isolation-a novel about love, friendship, family, and betrayal, a book that reads like a great Russian novel, or Chekhov on the Hudson, by a novelist The New York Times calls 'one of his generation's most original writers'.
Our Country Friends is a perfect novel for these times and all times, the single textual artifact from the pandemic era I would place in a time capsule as a representation of all that is good and true and beautiful about literatureI hope the extraterrestrials who exhume it will agree. * New York Times *
Reflective, earthy, humane [...] The novel's strengths abound. It upends clichés, pieties and commonplaces while also noticing salient details of the lockdown. * New York Times Book Review *
A warm, empathetic novel, written with a tenderness and close observation of [its] enclosed society that pulls the reader into the novel's present and allows her to forget for a little while - as Shteyngart's cast is attempting to do - the catastrophe unfolding in the world beyond. -- Erica Wagner * Financial Times *
a playful, allusive comedy of pandemic manners that triumphantly blends hilarity with soulfulness -- Hephzibah Anderson * Mail on Sunday *
Very Russian - in the best possible way -- Sam Leith * Guardian *
flamboyant, theatrical, tragicomic -- Claire Lowdon * Sunday Times *
Shteyngart's ability is mesmerising, almost to the point of distraction. [...] His grasp of both the minutiae and the meta of contemporary American experience reminds me of Jonathan Franzen. [...] Shteyngart brings vividly to life a group of characters who go through real, significant change, and who experience Troo Emotions (read the book to get that allusion). In fact, just read the book - no trailer necessary. -- Lucy Sweeney Byrne * Irish Times *
Gary Shteyngart is a national treasure. He has always written with great humor and heart, but never more so than here. Be careful reading this book in public; it is as likely to make you laugh out loud as cry. -- Jonathan Safran Foer, bestselling author of EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED and I AM HERE
There cannot be a more relevant novel for our moment, certainly not one with such beauty of description, depth of feeling, and, as always, humor. Shteyngart has written an American comic Decameron, or, to be plain: a masterpiece. -- Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of LESS
The Great American Pandemic Novel only Shteyngart could write, full of hyphenated identities, killer prose, and wild vitality. * Kirkus, starred review *
Reflective, earthy, humane [...] The novel's strengths abound. It upends clichés, pieties and commonplaces while also noticing salient details of the lockdown. * New York Times Book Review *
A warm, empathetic novel, written with a tenderness and close observation of [its] enclosed society that pulls the reader into the novel's present and allows her to forget for a little while - as Shteyngart's cast is attempting to do - the catastrophe unfolding in the world beyond. -- Erica Wagner * Financial Times *
a playful, allusive comedy of pandemic manners that triumphantly blends hilarity with soulfulness -- Hephzibah Anderson * Mail on Sunday *
Very Russian - in the best possible way -- Sam Leith * Guardian *
flamboyant, theatrical, tragicomic -- Claire Lowdon * Sunday Times *
Shteyngart's ability is mesmerising, almost to the point of distraction. [...] His grasp of both the minutiae and the meta of contemporary American experience reminds me of Jonathan Franzen. [...] Shteyngart brings vividly to life a group of characters who go through real, significant change, and who experience Troo Emotions (read the book to get that allusion). In fact, just read the book - no trailer necessary. -- Lucy Sweeney Byrne * Irish Times *
You can retreat from global catastrophe but your private calamities will come and find you. Gary Shteyngart's most moving novel, Chekhov and Boccaccio reimagined in America in the year of the pandemic, is a powerful fable of our broken time.
-- Salman Rushdie, Booker Prize-winning author of MIDNIGHT'S CHILDRENIt's both tender and hilarious (frequently at once), and it's attentive to the jittery cultural and political moment in
which it's set. [...] Shteyngart has a Nabokovian ability to enrich narrative with metaphor like some ingenious literary nutritionist . . .
Gary Shteyngart is a national treasure. He has always written with great humor and heart, but never more so than here. Be careful reading this book in public; it is as likely to make you laugh out loud as cry. -- Jonathan Safran Foer, bestselling author of EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED and I AM HERE
There cannot be a more relevant novel for our moment, certainly not one with such beauty of description, depth of feeling, and, as always, humor. Shteyngart has written an American comic Decameron, or, to be plain: a masterpiece. -- Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of LESS
Shteyngart's big-hearted drama is timely yet timeless with its penetrating and nuanced social commentary exploring identity, racism, celebrity culture, social media, and humanity. Above all, Shteyngart artfully exemplifies love in its many registers-parental, brotherly, romantic-in what is ultimately a 'super sad true love' story.
* Booklist, starred review *The Great American Pandemic Novel only Shteyngart could write, full of hyphenated identities, killer prose, and wild vitality. * Kirkus, starred review *
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 named one of the 10 Best Books of the Year by The New York Times Book Review. 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 and a New York Times bestseller. His most recent novel is Lake Success. His books regularly appear on best-of lists around the world and have been published in thirty countries.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781838956868 |
| ISBN 10 | 1838956867 |
| Title | Our Country Friends |
| Author | Gary Shteyngart |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Atlantic Books |
| Year published | 2022-01-27 |
| Number of pages | 336 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |