Author Gary Shteyngart is like the Russian billionaire of the lit world, except without the billions and without a professional basketball team. Shteyngart's new novel is Super Sad True Love Story which is out now. I haven't read it yet, but it's something about the world being controlled by a messageboard like Facebook called GlobalTeens. It's one of those 'not so distant future' stories and it's supposed to be funny, I think.
Anyway, everyone's been interviewing Gary lately, except for us. So here are some of those interviews:
Over at The Rumpus:
“Satire disappeared from American fiction, but American fiction also disappeared from American fiction.”
“…but what’s a book that can roar now? I’m trying to roar. Who knows if anyone’s tuned in to the lion frequency.”
Ånd Shteyngart on shtickiness at NY Mag:
“There is a common knock against Shteyngart: He’s a mascot playing off Russian and Jewish stereotypes…'Sure, well, it is a shtick,' he says. 'I believe in
entertainment—I love entertainment. I am authentically me. And part of
it has to do with my 401(k). Every author who straddles cultures is
inauthentic in a way.'”
NY Observer is tracking his new home purchase.
Paste Mag has a good story on Gary (but it's only in their mag viewed digitally).
“What will people be like if long-form text is no longer comprehensible to them? We're all doing it. We're all shifting away from it.”
And Huffington Post asked readers to submit questions last week and then didn't do an interview (or at least I couldn't find it). Guess they didn't get any good questions.
