Super Sad True Love Story

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.

Super Sad True Love Story: A Novel
First edition cover
AuthorGary Shteyngart
Cover artistRodrigo Corral
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
GenreNovel
PublisherRandom House
Publication date
July 27, 2010
ISBN978-1-4000-6640-7

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 from New Jersey 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 twilight nation, the only three industries left are Media, Credit, and Retail. In the meantime, the totalitarian Bipartisan Party government's main mission is to encourage and promote consumerism while eliminating political dissidents,[2] under US President Cortez. Abramov is a member of the Creative Class, who sells long-term life extension to high net worth individuals in Italy.[3] Italy is the only and last country in Europe that has any meaningful dealings with the USA. The United States invaded Venezuela at some point.[4] In the story, to describe the change in relative positions, six million Chinese Yuan is equal to 50 million USD.[4] The current USA is fixed in a cult of youth based on the oversaturated "GlobalTeens" social media site, which has the phrase "Less words = more fun!!!".[5] The USA is called an "unstable, barely governable country presenting grave risk to the international system of corporate governance and exchange mechanisms" by a member of the Chinese Central Bank.[6]

Abramov, acting as the POV character, explains the future of the USA in the wake of the sudden collapse of the Bipartisan government, in a political event called “The Rupture".[7]

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.[8] In 2016, the literary critic Raymond Malewitz published an article on "digital posthumanism" in the novel in the journal Arizona Quarterly.[9]

TV adaptation

Ben Stiller and Media Rights Capital are producing a TV series for Showtime.[10][11]

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. "Review: Super Sad True Love Story, by Gary Shteyngart". Retrieved 2019-08-28.
  4. "'Super Sad' And Satiric, Two Stories Of Doomed Love". NPR.org. Retrieved 2019-08-28.
  5. "Review: Super Sad True Love Story, by Gary Shteyngart". Retrieved 2019-08-28.
  6. "Review: Super Sad True Love Story, by Gary Shteyngart". Retrieved 2019-08-28.
  7. "Super Sad True Love Story". The Barnes & Noble Review. 2010-07-26. Retrieved 2019-08-28.
  8. "Super Sad True Love Story, "Random House Inc."
  9. 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)
  10. Wagmeister, Elizabeth. "Showtime Developing Novel 'Super Sad True Love Story' with Ben Stiller Directing (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety.com. Retrieved 1 February 2016.
  11. Super Sad True Love Story, retrieved 2019-08-28
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