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Gary Shteyngart’s Vera, or Faith Skewers Voting Inequity in Dystopian America

Shteyngart channels a precocious ten-year-old narrator to investigate the Five-thirds voting amendment’s impact on immigrant families under AI surveillance in a satirical near-future United States.

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Overview

  • Released July 8 by Random House, the novel has drawn acclaim for its biting political satire and inventive child narrator.
  • The Five-thirds amendment at the story’s core grants extra votes to “exceptional Americans” while excluding the immigrant protagonist and her family.
  • Vera, a sharp but anxious ten-year-old of Russian-Jewish-Korean heritage, navigates her parents’ fraught marriage and questions of identity.
  • Subtly futuristic devices such as Kaspie, an AI-powered chessboard, and Stella, an autonomous car, underscore themes of surveillance and bias.
  • Critics praise the book’s timely examination of voting rights, immigration enforcement and AI-driven social control.