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3.0 

The Russian Debutante's Handbook

By Gary Shteyngart
The Russian Debutante's Handbook by Gary Shteyngart digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

NAMED ONE OF THE ATLANTIC'S GREAT AMERICAN NOVELS OF THE PAST 100 YEARS

A visionary novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Super Sad True Love Story and Little Failure.

The Russian Debutante's Handbook introduces Vladimir Girshkin, one of the most original and unlikely heroes of recent times. The twenty-five-year-old unhappy lover to a fat dungeon mistress, affectionately nicknamed "Little Failure" by his high-achieving mother, Vladimir toils his days away as a lowly clerk at the bureaucratic Emma Lazarus Immigrant Absorption Society. When a wealthy but psychotic old Russian war hero appears, Vladimir embarks on an adventure of unrelenting lunacy that takes us from New York's Lower East Side to the hip frontier wilderness of Prava--the Eastern European Paris of the nineties. With the help of a murderous but fun-loving Russian mafioso, Vladimir infiltrates the Prava expat community and launches a scheme as ridiculous as it is brilliant.

Bursting with wit, humor, and rare insight, The Russian Debutante's Handbook is both a highly imaginative romp and a serious exploration of what it means to be an immigrant in America.

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59 Reviews

3.0
“Once I started listening to it, I couldn’t stop. One sarcastic mishap after another. And some of the wildest characters I’ve ever met.”
“I actually wish I would have not finished this one. I’m not sure why I didn’t just put it down. It was highly rated by critics, but much like the main character it felt intentionally pretentious. A lot of big words and vague thoughts that meandered along in a boring plot with no satisfying end point. Definitely would not recommend, maybe it was just too literary for me though”

About Gary Shteyngart

Gary Shteyngart is the New York Times bestselling author of the memoir Little Failure (a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist) and the novels Super Sad True Love Story (winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize), Absurdistan, and The Russian Debutante’s Handbook (winner of the Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction and the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction). His books regularly appear on best-of lists around the world and have been published in thirty countries.

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