Forum From the Archives: Gary Shteyngart Tackles the Pandemic Novel In "Our Country Friends"

KQED's Forum

KQED

News Commentary, News, Politics

4.2 • 727 Ratings

🗓️ 25 November 2021

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In his latest book “Our Country Friends,” novelist Gary Shteyngart tackles the pandemic novel. In the book, the protagonist, Sasha Senderovsky, a writer whose star is slowly flaming out, gathers his family and high school friends in a pod at his country home to ride out the early days of the pandemic. Lauded by the New York Times as the “perfect novel for these times and all times,” “Our Country Friends uses the pandemic to explore themes of family, longing, and loss all with Shteyngart’s characteristic humor and wit. We’ll talk to Shteyngart, who is famous for his dystopian novel “Super Sad True Love Story,” about what it was like to write in real-time about the dystopia unfolding around him. This segment originally aired Nov. 3. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Support for Forum comes from Rancho La Puerta, boated the number one wellness resort and spa by readers of travel and leisure magazine in 2024.
0:09.7	In August, three or four people sharing a cassita enjoy special vacation packages that include hiking, mindfulness, and fitness classes, in a garden setting on 4,000 verdant acres of nature preserve.
0:22.4	Check in to summer at Rancho LaPorta.
0:25.1	Rancho LaPorta.com.
0:26.8	Greetings boomtown.
0:28.3	The Xfinity Wi-Fi is booming!
0:30.6	Xfinity combines the power of internet and mobile.
0:33.7	So we've all got lightning fast speeds at home and on the go.
0:37.3	Learn more at Xfinity.com.
0:39.3	Restrictions apply, Xfinity, Internet required.
0:41.3	Actual speeds vary.
0:42.3	From KQED.
0:44.3	From KQED.
0:49.3	From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal.
0:59.5	Happy Thanksgiving in a special holiday edition of Forum.
1:03.1	We're going to listen back on my interview from early this month with Gary Steingart.
1:07.2	From his first novel, The Russian Debuton's Handbook, Through the Underrated Obsert celebrated super sad true love story, to his memoir, little failure and pieces in the New Yorker,
1:15.6	Steingart has the kind of touch for comedy that can't be taught.
1:19.6	But deep down, his novels also want to be more.
1:21.6	He is a Russian novelist, after all Russian American, at least, and weighty questions crop up in his books.
1:26.6	Now in his latest novel, Our Country Friend, Steingard, has written a hilarious and generous book
1:31.3	about what it is to live now in the pandemic and just generally too.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from KQED, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of KQED and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.