Super Sad True Love Story

Super Sad True Love Story: A Novel
First edition cover
Author Gary Shteyngart
Cover artist Rodrigo Corral
Country United States
Language English
Genre Novel
Publisher Random House
Publication date
 27 July 2010
ISBN 978-1-4000-6640-7

Super Sad True Love Story is the third novel by American writer Gary Shteyngart.[1] The novel takes place in a near-future dystopian New York where life is dominated by media and retail.

Plot summary

The son of a Russian immigrant, protagonist Leonard (Lenny) Abramov, a middle-aged, middle class, otherwise unremarkable man whose mentality is still in the past century, falls madly in love with Eunice Park, a young Korean-American struggling with materialism and the pressures of her traditional Korean family. The chapters alternate between profuse diary entries from the old-fashioned Lenny and Eunice's biting e-mail correspondence on her "GlobalTeens" account. In the background of what appears to be a love story that oscillates between superficiality and despair, a grim political situation unravels. America is on the brink of economic collapse, threatened by its Chinese creditors. In the meantime, the totalitarian Bipartisan government's main mission is to encourage and promote consumerism while eliminating political dissidents.[2]

Critical reception

The novel won the Salon Book Award (Fiction, 2010) and the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize (2011). It was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year (Fiction & Poetry, 2010), New York Times bestseller (Fiction, 2010), and Amazon's Best Books of the Month in August 2010. It was named one of the best books of the year by numerous publications, including The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, O: The Oprah Magazine, Maureen Corrigan of NPR, and Slate.[3] The literary critic Raymond Malewitz has recently published an article on "digital posthumanism" in the novel in the journal Arizona Quarterly.[4]

TV adaptation

Ben Stiller and Media Rights Capital are producing a TV series for Showtime.[5]

References

  1. ↑ "Love Found Amid Ruins of Empire", MICHIKO KAKUTANI, New York Times Book Review, July 26, 2010
  2. ↑ "Shteyngart's humorous trailer to his book"
  3. ↑ "Super Sad True Love Story, "Random House Inc."
  4. ↑ Malewitz, Raymond. “'Some new dimension devoid of hip and bone': Remediated Bodies and Digital Posthumanism in Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story" Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory 71.4 (Winter 2016)
  5. ↑ Wagmeister, Elizabeth. "Showtime Developing Novel 'Super Sad True Love Story' with Ben Stiller Directing (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety.com. Retrieved 1 February 2016.


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