Vera, or Faith

A Novel

De: Gary Shteyngart

Narrado por: Shannon Tyo, Gary Shteyngart

A poignant, sharp-eyed, and bitterly funny tale of a family struggling to stay together in a country rapidly coming apart, told through the eyes of their wondrous ten-year-old daughter, by the bestselling author of Super Sad True Love Story and Our Country Friends

“A novel you can read in one sitting that will stay with you forever.”—Karen Russell

“Very funny, very sad, very sharp, and completely delightful.”—Elif Batuman

“A brilliant fable about childhood, and so much more, in our broken country.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK: The New York Times, Time, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Bustle, Vulture, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Book Riot, Publishers Weekly, Literary Hub, AV Club, Hey Alma

The Bradford-Shmulkin family is falling apart. A very modern blend of Russian, Jewish, Korean, and New England WASP, they love one another deeply but the pressures of life in an unstable America are fraying their bonds. There's Daddy, a struggling, cash-thirsty editor whose Russian heritage gives him a surprising new currency in the upside-down world of twenty-first-century geopolitics; his wife, Anne Mom, a progressive, underfunded blue blood from Boston who's barely holding the household together; their son, Dylan, whose blond hair and Mayflower lineage provide him pride of place in the newly forming American political order; and, above all, the young Vera, half-Jewish, half-Korean, and wholly original.

Observant, sensitive, and always writing down new vocabulary words, Vera wants only three things in life: to make a friend at school; Daddy and Anne Mom to stay together; and to meet her birth mother, Mom Mom, who will at last tell Vera the secret of who she really is and how to ensure love's survival in this great, mad, imploding world.

Both biting and deeply moving, Vera, or Faith is a boldly imagined story of family and country told through the clear and tender eyes of a child. With a nod to What Maisie Knew, Henry James's classic story of parents, children, and the dark ironies of a rapidly transforming society, Vera, or Faith demonstrates why Shteyngart is, in the words of The New York Times, "one of his generation's most exhilarating writers."

©2025 Gary Shteyngart (P)2025 Random House Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

“Shteyngart’s work is always saturated with humor and heart, and his latest novel offers a new perspective on one of literature’s most prominent subjects: How can a family survive in America? . . . Shteyngart is excellent at capturing the difficult places where emotional bonds grow thin even as love remains potent.”—Vulture

“Reliably entertaining and incisive.”—The Washington Post

“Through Vera’s eyes, Shteyngart creates a comic masterpiece that questions everything from politics to the way we adapt to change.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune

Compelling story delivered through the eyes of a brilliant, neurodivergent 10 year old. Funny, raw, poignant.

Political backdrop doesn’t smack you but is so well integrated that its’ power stuns. Perfect narration!

Lovely, delightful

This is a quiet, seemingly simple, seemingly light-read book that says so much more than the sum of its words, and packs a wallop. I will be thinking about it for a long time. The narrator was truly excellent. Loved this book.

Gary does it again!

once again, Gary S pulls off a most sarcastic and humorous novel. I love the Korean Russian connection, and also that it’s told through the eyes of a very young and an anxious child, perhaps as the author had been? Navigating uncertainty is one of the most difficult things as humans will ever have to do.

Fantastic storytelling from child’s POV

This book speaks to so many issues today and also timeless issues. The narrator does an incredible job of capturing young and old American and Korean and Russian voices.

Utterly moving (in a non-ironic way)

This is a novel for the moment: our anxious, polarized, weirded-out country. The satire of near-future political / informational reality is just provocative enough not to steal the show from 10-year-old Vera. Vera is always plumbing the meaning of vocabulary words in what some would label a precocious and others a neurodiverse way, She encounters something she learns to call “moving” toward the end of the book—and if you’re not moved, you may not be human. Then again, one of Vera’s two best friends is not human either. A brilliantly executed novel, very well delivered by the narrator.

The precociousness of the little girl

I loved that it used all the ridiculousness of our current country. I look forward to reading another book by Gary Shteyngart

Faith and Vera

I liked the way the story unfolded. Many twists and turns and the characters ending was very different than what I had expected.

Funny and heartbreaking

One of Shteyngart’s very best, beautifully narrated, filled with the very specific weirdness of this moment we’re living through.

A mixed bag

The story having to do with Vera, a precious and precocious 10-year old is compelling and drives the story. The search for Mom-mom turns out to be a red herring and a simple plot device. All the political stuff that Shteyngart layers on feels like an ill-fitted suit or jacket. It isn't organic to the central features of the story. It feels like it cobbled it on in an attempt to make do or he had two story ideas and he forced them together. The Vera part is wonderful; the political thriller part not so much.