Hello and welcome to The Spectator's Book Club podcast.

I'm Sam Leith, the literary editor of The Spectator.

I'm very pleased to have as my guest this week, Gary Steingart, whose new book is Vera or Faith.

Which, Gary, you know, people who've come to expect scabrous comedy from you.

Here is this very touching book about a 10-year-old girl.

Aw.

Yeah, I am softened in my old age.

I think I started out as a scabrous sort of fist-waving young satirist. Books like

Absurdistan were definitely just chock full of satire. There was, I don't think there was any ounce

of sweetness in one of those. But I've grown older. I'm 53, which in Russian years is, I don't

know, 98. So I've... You see, I have a joke about that in the book.

Yeah, there is a joke, you're right.

So, see, I'm just parroting my own book.

But, yes, I've grown old, and I've had a son, who's 11, a little bit older than

Vera.

And, yeah, I feel like, you know, I hope the book is still funny.

You know, there's definitely jokes, especially at the expense of a character a little bit like myself, a little bit, not much, but a little bit.

But at the same time, I did want to focus on, as Whitney Houston said, I believe the children are the future.

They're not that many of them being made anymore in our part of the world.

But, you know, I thought it would be interesting to focus because I've, I never thought I

would have a child, frankly.

And when I did, I realized after a certain while, after they start talking and thinking,

...