{"product_id":"9780594760993","title":"Little Failure","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES\u003c\/i\u003e BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY MICHIKO KAKUTANI, \u003ci\u003eTHE NEW YORK TIMES\u003c\/i\u003e • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY \u003ci\u003eTIME\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY MORE THAN 45 PUBLICATIONS, INCLUDING\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review • The Washington Post • \u003c\/i\u003eNPR\u003ci\u003e • The New Yorker • San Francisco Chronicle • The Economist • The Atlantic • Newsday • Salon • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • The Guardian • Esquire \u003c\/i\u003e(UK) • \u003ci\u003eGQ \u003c\/i\u003e(UK)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter three acclaimed novels, Gary Shteyngart turns to memoir in a candid, witty, deeply poignant account of his life so far. Shteyngart shares his American immigrant experience, moving back and forth through time and memory with self-deprecating humor, moving insights, and literary bravado. The result is a resonant story of family and belonging that feels epic and intimate and distinctly his own.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBorn Igor Shteyngart in Leningrad during the twilight of the Soviet Union, the curious, diminutive, asthmatic boy grew up with a persistent sense of yearning—for food, for acceptance, for words—desires that would follow him into adulthood. At five, Igor wrote his first novel, \u003ci\u003eLenin and His Magical Goose, \u003c\/i\u003eand his grandmother paid him a slice of cheese for every page.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the late 1970s, world events changed Igor’s life. Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev made a deal: exchange grain for the safe passage of Soviet Jews to America—a country Igor viewed as the enemy. Along the way, Igor became Gary so that he would suffer one or two fewer beatings from other kids. Coming to the United States from the Soviet Union was equivalent to stumbling off a monochromatic cliff and landing in a pool of pure Technicolor.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShteyngart’s loving but mismatched parents dreamed that he would become a lawyer or at least a “conscientious toiler” on Wall Street, something their distracted son was simply not cut out to do. Fusing English and Russian, his mother created the term \u003ci\u003eFailurchka\u003c\/i\u003e—Little Failure—which she applied to her son. With love. Mostly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs a result, Shteyngart operated on a theory that he would fail at everything he tried. At being a writer, at being a boyfriend, and, most important, at being a worthwhile human being.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSwinging between a Soviet home life and American aspirations, Shteyngart found himself living in two contradictory worlds, all the while wishing that he could find a real home in one. And somebody to love him. And somebody to lend him sixty-nine cents for a McDonald’s hamburger.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProvocative, hilarious, and inventive, \u003ci\u003eLittle Failure\u003c\/i\u003e reveals a deeper vein of emotion in Gary Shteyngart’s prose. It is a memoir of an immigrant family coming to America, as told by a lifelong misfit who forged from his imagination an essential literary voice and, against all odds, a place in the world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eLittle Failure\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Hilarious and moving . . . The army of readers who love Gary Shteyngart is about to get bigger.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A memoir for the ages . . . brilliant and unflinching.”\u003cb\u003e—Mary Karr\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“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.”\u003cb\u003e—Meg Wolitzer, NPR\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Literary gold . . . bruisingly funny.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eVogue\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A giant success.”\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Entertainment Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e","brand":"Random House Publishing Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42646405775421,"sku":"9780594760993","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0603\/0838\/9949\/files\/9780594760993_p0.jpg?v=1771588473","url":"https:\/\/www.tatteredcover.com\/products\/9780594760993","provider":"Tattered Cover","version":"1.0","type":"link"}