It’s been more than twen­ty years since Gary Shteyn­gart first daz­zled the lit­er­ary world with his per­cep­tive­ness and wit, when he arrived on the scene with The Russ­ian Debutante’s Hand­book. In the inter­ven­ing years his humor has nev­er flagged, and his insights about the human con­di­tion have only become more acute and empathetic.

Shteyn­gart reach­es new heights with his lat­est nov­el and its title char­ac­ter, the ten-year-old daugh­ter of a Shteyn­gart-like father. Her dad, Igor Shmulkin, is an intel­lec­tu­al and some­time ​“man­flu­encer” who pub­lish­es a small mag­a­zine. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree: Vera con­tin­u­al­ly col­lects new words, and keeps a diary of ​“things I still need to know.” In a clever stroke, the appear­ance of each of those words in the nar­ra­tive becomes a mark­er of Vera’s grow­ing under­stand­ing — not just of lan­guage, but also of the world.

The nov­el is replete with such telling details. At school, for exam­ple, Vera is con­cerned that there appar­ent­ly aren’t enough fire extin­guish­ers and fire exits in the audi­to­ri­um. It’s no sur­prise to learn a bit lat­er that her goal is to become ​“a woman in STEM” (sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, engi­neer­ing, math).

When we first meet Vera, her life cen­ters on her fam­i­ly and their idio­syn­crasies: an annoy­ing broth­er, a father who’s try­ing to get fund­ing for his mag­a­zine, and a Protes­tant mom with a trust fund. As the future of the mag­a­zine becomes less cer­tain, she wor­ries that the fam­i­ly might need to move. 

This uncer­tain­ty brings intense anx­i­ety, and Vera’s thoughts turn to some­thing she has always under­stood: that the moth­er who raised her is not her bio­log­i­cal moth­er. And she real­izes that all she knows about her birth moth­er is that she is Kore­an. Now she is deter­mined to learn more. With the help of a friend, she embarks on a jour­ney of dis­cov­ery that becomes the emo­tion­al core of this story.

It’s worth not­ing that this nov­el is a kind of spec­u­la­tive fic­tion, sub­tly set in the near future and not in the present time. There are hints of dystopi­an changes in gov­ern­ment, as well as signs of tech­no­log­i­cal advance. One of the ​“char­ac­ters” is a talk­ing chess­board, a device pow­ered by arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence that becomes Vera’s con­fes­sor and advi­sor. There’s also a car that talks.

But in the end, it’s Vera who lingers in the reader’s mind. All the char­ac­ters are sharply etched, but Vera is a won­der­ful cre­ation – curi­ous, sen­si­tive, and seri­ous. It’s her quest that gives this nov­el its weight and sub­stance. Of course, Shteyngart’s satir­i­cal asides are great fun, as always, and the nar­ra­tive is rich in wit­ty obser­va­tions. All told, this is an absorb­ing, enter­tain­ing, mul­ti-lay­ered sto­ry that invites reflec­tion and brings delight.