Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
When his dream of the perfect marriage, the perfect son, and the perfect life implodes, a Wall Street millionaire takes a cross-country bus trip in search of his college sweetheart and ideals of youth
in the long-awaited novel, his first in seven years, from the acclaimed, bestselling author of Super Sad True Love Story.
Myopic, narcissistic, hilariously self-deluded and divorced from the real world as most of us know it, hedge fund manager Barry Cohen oversees $2.4 billion in assets. Deeply stressed by an SEC investigation and by his 3 year-old-son's diagnosis of autism, he flees New York on a Greyhound bus in search of a simpler, more romantic life with his old college sweetheart, whom he hasn't seen or spoken to in years. Meanwhile, reeling from the fight that caused Barry's departure, his super-smart wife Seema--a driven first-generation American who craved a picture-perfect life, with all the accoutrements of a huge bank account--has her own demons to face. How these two imperfect characters navigate the Shteyngartian chaos of their own making is the heart of this biting, brilliant, emotionally resonant novel very much of our times.
Synopsis
The bestselling author of Super Sad True Love Story returns with a biting, brilliant, emotionally resonant novel very much of our times. "Gary Shteyngart has held up a mirror to American culture that is so accurate, and so devastating, that it makes you want to break the mirror right over your own head. I mean this as a good thing."--Elizabeth Gilbert
Narcissistic, hilariously self-deluded, and divorced from the real world as most of us know it, hedge-fund manager Barry Cohen oversees $2.4 billion in assets. Deeply stressed by an SEC investigation and by his three-year-old-son's diagnosis of autism, he flees New York on a Greyhound bus in search of a simpler, more romantic life with his old college sweetheart. Meanwhile, his super-smart wife, Seema--a driven first-generation American who craved the picture-perfect life that comes with wealth--has her own demons to face. How these two flawed characters navigate the Shteyngartian chaos of their own making is at the heart of this piercing exploration of the 0.1 Percent, a poignant tale of familial longing and an unsentimental ode to what really makes America great.
Advance praise for Lake Success
" Gary] Shteyngart does slapstick as well as ever, but he stakes out new terrain in the expert way he develops his characters' pathos. . . . Lake Success is] a stylish, big-hearted novel. Shteyngart made his name as a sharp satirist, and he'll undoubtedly widen his appeal with this effort."--Publishers Weekly
"In Lake Success, Gary Shteyngart hears America perfectly: its fatuity, its poignant lament, its boisterous self-loathing. Its heartbeat. Reading him sometimes makes me want to scream--with recognition and with pure hilarity."--Richard Ford
"Lake Success is Gary Shteyngart, so you already know it's the funniest book you'll read all year. But the surprise here is the novel's epic sweep, its melancholy resonance. What begins as a rollicking and zinger-filled road trip sneakily deepens into a poignant tale of a man trying to outrace his problems. I was utterly floored by Shteyngart's staggeringly beautiful denouement."--Maria Semple
Synopsis
"Spectacular."--NPR - "Uproariously funny."--The Boston Globe - "An artistic triumph."--San Francisco Chronicle - "A novel in which comedy and pathos are exquisitely balanced."--The Washington Post - "Shteyngart's best book."--The Seattle Times The bestselling author of
Super Sad True Love Story returns with a biting, brilliant, emotionally resonant novel very much of our times.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review - NPR - The Washington Post - Library Journal Narcissistic, hilariously self-deluded, and divorced from the real world as most of us know it, hedge-fund manager Barry Cohen oversees $2.4 billion in assets. Deeply stressed by an SEC investigation and by his three-year-old son's diagnosis of autism, he flees New York on a Greyhound bus in search of a simpler, more romantic life with his old college sweetheart. Meanwhile, his super-smart wife, Seema--a driven first-generation American who craved the picture-perfect life that comes with wealth--has her own demons to face. How these two flawed characters navigate the Shteyngartian chaos of their own making is at the heart of this piercing exploration of the 0.1 Percent, a poignant tale of familial longing and an unsentimental ode to what really makes America great.
LONGLISTED FOR THE CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN FICTION
"The fuel and oxygen of immigrant literature--movement, exile, nostalgia, cultural disorientation--are what fire the pistons of this trenchant and panoramic novel. . . . It is] a novel so pungent, so frisky and so intent on probing the dissonances and delusions--both individual and collective--that grip this strange land getting stranger."--The New York Times Book Review
"Shteyngart, perhaps more than any American writer of his generation, is a natural. He is light, stinging, insolent and melancholy. . . . The wit and the immigrant's sense of heartbreak--he was born in Russia--just seem to pour from him. The idea of riding along behind Shteyngart as he glides across America in the early age of Trump is a propitious one. He doesn't disappoint."--The New York Times
"From one of our finest comic novelists comes a work with equal parts smarts and heart to go with the steady hilarity of its plot and prose. . . . Surely the funniest book of the year, indeed one of the best overall."--Newsday
Gary Shteyngart on PowellsBooks.Blog
Lake Success is the story of Barry Cohen, a hedge fund guy whose fund is being investigated by the SEC, and who flees his failing marriage, autistic son, and imploding career on a Greyhound bus, searching for his college sweetheart across America. Meanwhile, the year is 2016, so some, um, interesting things are about to happen electorally...
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