NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST
NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY MICHIKO KAKUTANI, THE NEW YORK TIMES • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY TIME
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY MORE THAN 45 PUBLICATIONS, INCLUDING The New York Times Book Review • The Washington Post • NPR • The New Yorker • San Francisco Chronicle • The Economist • The Atlantic • Newsday • Salon • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • The Guardian • Esquire (UK) • GQ (UK)
Little Failure is the all too true story of an immigrant family betting its future on America, as told by a lifelong misfit who finally finds a place for himself in the world through books and words. In 1979, a little boy dragging a ginormous fur hat and an overcoat made from the skin of some Soviet woodland creature steps off the plane at New York’s JFK International Airport and into his new American life. His troubles are just beginning. For the former Igor Shteyngart, coming to the United States from the Soviet Union is like stumbling off a monochromatic cliff and landing in a pool of Technicolor. Careening between his Soviet home life and his American aspirations, he finds himself living in two contradictory worlds, wishing for a real home in one. He becomes so strange to his parents that his mother stops bickering with his father long enough to coin the phrase failurchka—“little failure”—which she applies to her once-promising son. With affection. Mostly. From the terrors of Hebrew School to a crash course in first love to a return visit to the homeland that is no longer home, Gary Shteyngart has crafted a ruthlessly brave and funny memoir of searching for every kind of love—family, romantic, and of the self.
BONUS: This edition includes a reading group guide.
Praise for Little Failure
“Hilarious and moving . . . The army of readers who love Gary Shteyngart is about to get bigger.”—The New York Times Book Review
“A memoir for the ages . . . brilliant and unflinching.”—Mary Karr
“Dazzling . . . a rich, nuanced memoir . . . It’s an immigrant story, a coming-of-age story, a becoming-a-writer story, and a becoming-a-mensch story, and in all these ways it is, unambivalently, a success.”—Meg Wolitzer, NPR
“Literary gold . . . [a] bruisingly funny memoir.”—Vogue
“A giant success.”—Entertainment Weekly
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Creators
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Publisher
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Awards
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Release date
January 7, 2014 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780812995336
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780812995336
- File size: 6609 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Publisher's Weekly
Starred review from October 28, 2013
One afternoon in 1996, a book titled St. Petersburg: Architecture of the Tsars becomes Shteyngart's madeleine, carrying him back in time and memory to his childhood in St. Petersburg and launching him on a career of writing about the past in his novels (Absurdistan). In his typical laugh-aloud approach, the acclaimed novelist carries us with him on his journey, from his birth in Leningrad and his decision to become a writer at age five to his immigration to America and his family's settling in New York City in 1979. Adolescent misadventure, his days at Oberlin College, his psychoanalysis, and his struggles after college to wend his way through the workaday world toward becoming a writer round out the trip. Shteyngart spends much of his pre-adolescence glued to the television set, watching shows like Gilligan's Island, which causes him to ask himself questions about American culture: "Is it really possible that a country as powerful as the United States would not be able to locate two of its best citizens lost at sea, to wit the millionaire and his wife?" Shteyngart's self-deprecating humor contains the sharp-edged twist of the knife of melancholy in this take of a young man "desperately trying to have a history, a past." -
Kirkus
Starred review from December 1, 2013
An immigrant's memoir like few others, with as sharp an edge and as much stylistic audacity as the author's well-received novels. The Russian-American novelist writes that after completing this memoir, he reread his three novels (Super Sad True Love Story, 2010, etc.) and was "shocked by the overlaps between fiction and reality....On many occasions in my novels I have approached a certain truth only to turn away from it, only to point my finger and laugh at it and then scurry back to safety. In this book I promised myself I would not point the finger. My laughter would be intermittent. There would be no safety." That observation minimizes just how funny this memoir frequently is, but it suggests that the richest, most complex character the author has ever rendered on the page is the one once known to his family as "Little Igor" and later tagged with "Scary Gary" by his Oberlin College classmates, with whom he recalls an incident, likely among many, in which he was "the drunkest, the stonedest, and, naturally, the scariest." Fueled by "the rage and humor that are our chief inheritance," Shteyngart traces his family history from the atrocities suffered in Stalinist Russia, through his difficulties assimilating as the "Red Nerd" of schoolboy America, through the asthma and panic attacks, alcoholism and psychoanalysis that preceded his literary breakthrough. He writes of the patronage of Korean-American novelist Chang-Rae Lee, who recruited him for a new creative writing program at Hunter College, helped him get a book deal for a novel he'd despaired over ever publishing and had "severely shaken my perception of what fiction about immigrants can get away with." Ever since, he's been getting away with as much as he dares. Though fans of the author's fiction will find illumination, a memoir this compelling and entertaining--one that frequently collapses the distinction between comedy and tragedy--should expand his readership beyond those who have loved his novels.COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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Library Journal
August 1, 2013
Author of celebrated novels like Super Sad True Love Story, Shteyngart actually produced his first literary work, Lenin and His Magical Goose, at age five. In this funny memoir, he recalls his early years in the crumbling Soviet Union, then at age seven coming to America--land of the enemy--following a deal between presidents Carter and Brezhnev guaranteeing Soviet Jews safe passage in exchange for U.S. grain. The hapless Shteyngart didn't fit in and surely wasn't going to be a lawyer, as his parents wanted; hence his mother's more or less affectionate nickname for him, Failurchka--that is, Little Failure. She was wrong.
Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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Library Journal
December 1, 2013
Instead of the incisive, satirical novel that readers might expect from Shteyngart (Super Sad True Love Story), this refreshing memoir makes it clear that for a writer in his 40s, he has produced enough material to fill volumes. Shteyngart unleashes a storm of lacerating humor upon himself and everything (and everyone) that made him who he is. As an immigrant, a misfit, and a lonely kid yearning to fit in, the author brings to life a quintessentially American story. This fascinating look into the making of a prominent literary voice is difficult to put down. VERDICT Poignant, vitriolic, wistful, always moving and painfully honest, this memoir is a substantial contribution. Shteyngart is well known for writing book blurbs for other authors; expect to see some heavy hitters getting behind this memoir, a self-examination that is entertaining and devastating in equal measure. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 7/22/13.]--Audrey Snowden, Orrington P.L., ME
Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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Formats
- Kindle Book
- OverDrive Read
- EPUB ebook
Languages
- English
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