I Keep Telling People We’re Living in This Dystopian Novel
About this episode
Klein talks with novelist Gary Shteyngart about his new novel 'Vera, or Faith,' set in a near-future America, and why dystopian fiction now reads like reportage. Shteyngart, a Soviet-born Jewish immigrant, says his experience of Soviet collapse attuned him to imperial unraveling; he feels he missed the boat on America as a stable project. They discuss satire as a way to process political horror, the cruelty of immigration enforcement, with ICE raids and detention featuring in the novel, and Shteyngart's turn toward more earnest writing about family and faith. Klein notes that the book's collapsing America feels less like fiction than recognition in 2026; Shteyngart agrees but insists on humor and humanity, his protagonist is a ten-year-old girl, as a form of resistance.