Vera, or Faith

A blended family negotiates internal and external tensions in the affecting and lightly speculative latest from Shteyngart (Our Country Friends). At 10, Vera Shmulkin is a sponge for language. She keeps a running journal of phrases spoken by her Russian immigrant father, Igor, a public intellectual and “manfluencer” who worries the family will lose their “merely rich” status in billionaire-friendly New York City if he fails to sell the “once-famous” magazine he’s attempting to rehab. Meanwhile, Vera’s Boston Brahman stepmother, Anne Mom, leads a resistance group against a proposed constitutional amendment that would supercharge enfranchisement for citizens such as Anne, whose family tree stretches back to the colonial era, but would marginalize Igor and Vera, the latter because her birth mother, Mom Mom, whom Vera never knew, came from Korea. After Igor fails to show at Anne’s fundraiser, their fights and Igor’s heavy drinking worry Vera, who becomes convinced that her father is a Russian spy. The various plotlines are provocative and clever, but most are underdeveloped save for Vera’s determination to track down Mom Mom, which builds to a dramatic climax and satisfying conclusion. Readers will go all in for this story’s singular heroine. Agent: Denise Shannon, Denise Shannon Literary. (July)