Our Country Friends: An Evening with Gary Shteyngart

Gary Shteyngart moved to the United States from Russia in 1979, when he was 7, and made a major splash at age 29 with his 2002 debut novel, A Russian Debutante’s Handbook. As The New York Times put it, reviewing his second book, Absurdistan (2006), “Compared with most young novelists his age, who tend toward cutesy involution, Shteyngart is a giant mounted on horseback.” His award-winning third book, A Super Sad True Love Story (2010), earned him another Times rave, “Gary Shteyngart’s wonderful new novel, is a supersad, superfunny, super-affecting performance of a book that not only showcases the ebullient satiric gifts he demonstrated in his entertaining 2002 debut….”

With the onset of the pandemic, Shteyngart and family retreated to their country place in the Hudson Valley, the setting for his fifth novel, Our Country Friends, a New York Times Notable Book of 2021. The novel tells the tale of Sasha Sederovsky, a novelist sitting on the laurels of his early success; his wife; their adopted Korean daughter; and eight guests, including a famous actor, all invited to wait out the pandemic in the relative safety of Senderovksy’s upstate haven, a quirky bungalow colony. Laugh-out-loud comedy and moving tragedy ensue.

Shteyngart is interviewed by A.M. Homes, whose books, including The End of Alice, This Book Will Save Your Life, and May We Be Forgiven, which the Times called “a splendidly perceptive joke about the freaky helixes of cultural evolution,” share with Shteyngart’s work razor-sharp wit and incisive psychological/sociological insight.