Blisteringly honest, funny, and so so sad. Gary Shteyngart, if his memoir is to be believed, was a painfully geeky and excruciatingly lonely child, teen, and adult. His parents, these violent, outrageous and uncouth Soviet Jews, move the family to America in the seventies (when Gary, née Igor, is an adorably semitic seven year old) and spend the rest of their lives trying to fit in in their new country. Those parents! They loved him so much, but outwardly were so horrible to him. His mother would go months without talking to him as a punishment, while his father would just hit him and call him Little Failure, of the title. If that doesn't fuck a child up, I don't know what will (and it seriously did to poor anxious, neurotic, asthmatic Igor). The way he writes about himself at pretty much every age is just as unflattering. He is so desperate and cloying and "fake and manipulative!" as Louise Lasser told him in an acting class, in one funny anecdote. I did find it very interesting to see his ideological trajectory veering from Lenin-obsessed Soviet youth to Republican-minded ultra conservative teen to urbane Manhattanite with matching political views. A great memoir with some really interesting things to say about immigrant parents, Soviet culture and history, anxiety disorders, and infuriating family members. Gary is alternately sweet and annoying. He was brave, I think, to display his warts, to acknowledge them and his embarrassing and extended adolescence. Underneath it all, though, he is a romantic, and that fact is what makes the book ultimately sing. He can't forget the love at base. The complaining and kvetching covers that. A very Jewish world view. And a very New York sensibility, and immigrant sensibility, too. I think the negativity to some reviews stems from not understanding that. But I have to say I appreciate it and the humor. The way he zeroes in on the larger than life extremes of his experiences. Not always likable, but he's in on that. He knows it. And that makes the writing ultimately rich.
What do You think about Little Failure (2014)?
Great book about the experience of immigrating to the US from the Soviet Union as a young child.
—jud
A delightful memoir combining the angst and challenges of growing up different in so many ways.
—Harry
