GARY SHTEYNGART – VERA, OR FAITH

Acclaimed novelist Gary Shteyngart – author of Super Sad True Love Story and Our Country Friends – returns to the JCCSF with Vera, or Faith, a darkly comic and deeply moving new novel about belief, identity, and a family – and nation – coming apart at the seams.

Set in a fractured near-future America, Vera, or Faith follows a failed screenwriter turned “faithfluencer,” navigating fame, grief, and the strange new world order. As she stumbles through cultish wellness trends and viral cancelations, Shteyngart delivers a razor-sharp satire of the stories we tell ourselves to survive.

But at its heart, this is Vera’s story: a tender, funny, and fiercely observant ten-year-old trying to hold her family together. Half-Jewish, half-Korean, and wholly original, Vera is a dazzling narrator – longing for a friend, for her parents to stay together, and for answers from the birth mother she’s never met.

Join us for an evening of lively conversation as Shteyngart discusses the inspirations behind his latest work and reflects on the humor and heartbreak of contemporary America.

Gary Shteyngart is the New York Times-bestselling author of Super Sad True Love Story, Absurdistan, Lake Success, and Little Failure. His work appears in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and Granta, and he’s been hailed as “one of his generation’s most original and exhilarating writers.”

Our community partner for this event is Green Apple Books