From his Q & A with Deborah Solomon:
Your new novel, “Super Sad True Love Story,” a superliterate sendup of consumer culture, is set in New York in the near future, when books are extinct, eternal life can be purchased by a rich elite, the subway offers business class and see-through jeans are the latest fashion. How do you feel about the word “dystopia”?Avi Steinberg, a former prison librarian, thought Lindsay Lohan should read Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story in jail.“Dystopia” is my middle name. I was born in the Soviet Union, and then we moved to Reagan’s America. We immigrated in 1979, just in time for the Gipper.
In your novel, Fox News has become Fox Liberty Ultra.
I’ve seen Fox News a couple of times. It’s a nice transition from the Pravda of yesteryear. It’s a party line without a party.
And this newspaper becomes The New York Lifestyle Times. Why would you make an unkind prophecy like that?
It means...[read on]
--Marshal Zeringue