Little Failure: Gary Shteyngart

Gary Shteyngart's loving but mismatched parents dreamed that he would become a lawyer, or at least an accountant, something their distracted son was simply not cut out to do. Fusing English and Russian, his mother created the term Failurchka-'Little Failure' - which she applied to her son. With love. Mostly. A candid and deeply poignant story of a Soviet family's trials and tribulations, and of their escape in 1979 to the consumerist promised land of the USA, Little Failureis also an exceptionally funny account of the author's transformation from asthmatic toddler in Leningrad to 40-something Manhattanite with a receding hairline and a memoir to write. 'Gary Shteyngard delivers big time with Little Failure. Told with fearlessness, wisdom and the wit that you'd expect from one of America's funniest novelists.' Carl Hiaasen 'If you, like me, have often wondered- 'How did Gary Shteyngart get like that?' Little Failureis the heartfelt, moving and truly engaging memoir that explains it all. Dr Freud would be proud.' Nathan Englander