As I was driving home one night last week, Mississippi Public Broadcasting was replaying the morning edition of “Fresh Air”, so I got to hear the excellent review of Gary Shteyngart’s new novel Super Sad True Love Story. Readers will remember him from the 2002 publication of Russian Debutante’s Handbook and the 2007 release Absurdistan, both of which Lemuria readers liked, according to our computer files.  I’m predicting that Super Sad True Love Story will be a big hit as well.

Since the review on MPB had already piqued my interest, I wasted no time in opening this novel. At the start, the protagonist, a thirty-nine year old Russian immigrant to America, is playing out his last days of a year long sojourn back in his home land, where he has been unsuccessfully trying to recruit clients for his business, “Post Human Services, which specializes in immortality. Yes, I did say, “Immortality!” So, I have let the cat out of the bag. Yes, this is a dystopian novel, but not like Margaret Atwood’s. Perhaps think of the impression you, reader, had of the near future as you once read George Orwell’s 1984, or maybe Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.

Back to Super Sad True Love Story………The business which Lenny Abramov tries to market and recruit for only wants those best specimens of human beings who have not only the intellectual, but also the physical attributes,  to endure forever. A one night stand with a 22-year-old  gorgeous Asian girl named Eunice Parks, a selfish, totally contemporary global prototype, throws Lenny into a helpless state of love. The word itself “love” rarely exists  in this almost apocalyptic America. Once back in New York, Lenny texts and emails Eunice, whose luck is running out in Russia, and who feels compelled to return to help her physically abused mother and sister, offering Eunice a place to stay.

This austere novel could be seen as a satire on technology taken to its ultimate extreme, depleting and horrific. All human beings wear “apparrats” which hang from their necks, constantly recording multiple amounts of data of everyone walking by, even their cholesterol and triglyceride levels. Equally shocking is the fact that their sexual desirability, personality attributes, and all sorts of physical  sustainability quotients are also projected for the entire wireless connected world to view. So, actual human contact, or even normal conversation, rarely occurs since basically everything one wants to know about another human being is literally at his or her finger tips. Actual love between one person and another, a dying art, rarely occurs; however, Lenny sees the possibility with Eunice and actively pursues her.

As the novel progresses, New York deteriorates and  National Guard tanks clutter the streets. Lenny, desperate to keep his job, worries about his credit score, which can be seen on every corner of the city on credit towers, along with other passerbys who also have equally troublesome scores. Eunice, who is staying for free at Lenny’s apartment and ultimately using him to her ultimate advantage, worries about her raging father who is abusing her mother and sister. Her powerful assertiveness, in which she “minored” in college, threatens to squash Lenny, who has the “savior complex.” An old fashioned book lover, Lenny hopes futilely to have a relationship in which he actually reads literature and poetry to his beloved. He treasures his first edition Chekhov collection of short stories, which a young  international traveler noted “smelled bad”.

As far as predictability, Super Sad True Love Story, may take the prize; yet, I will keep reading to see how Shteyngart plays it out. As far a contemporary language and futuristic devices, the author excels. The colorful jacket says it all graphically: the multicolored  “buttons”, a symbol of the high tech world of mobile devices, are all bright colors, except for the one circling the word “sad”, which is stark black. The irony is inescapable. The title would have read, “Super True Love Story”—how sad!  -Nan

I have been on a historical fiction kick lately this summer and it is no wonder because both Alison Weir and Philippa Gregory have new novels out and both are really good and fun to read.  Both of  these books are about strong women who will do whatever they can for their sons to have what they deserve.  At least what they think they deserve.

Captive Queen by Alison Weir is about Eleanor of Aquitaine, who is one of the most admired females in medieval history.  Eleanor was a heiress in her own right with her duchy of Aquitaine which was transferred to France with her marriage to King Louis VII and then to England with her marriage King Henry II.   Captive Queen is mainly about the tempestuous relationship between Eleanor and Henry and the power struggles and rivalries between Henry and their children which include Richard the Lionheart and the future King John.  Eleanor is ‘held captive’ by her love/hate relationship with her husband, Henry, and then finally after betraying him to have her favorite son, Richard, put on the throne of England she physically becomes his captive.

Philippa Gregory has started a new series, The Cousins War, that encompasses the War of the Roses. These stories are about the Plantagenet cousins, the Houses of York and Lancaster, whose claimants and Kings ruled England before The Tudors.  The first of the series is The White Queen which I do recommend reading first and it has just come out in paperback.   The White Queen is Elizabeth Woodville, who captures the heart of the newly crowned young king and marries him in secret.  She and her family, The House of York rise to power and her two sons become a part of one of  history’s biggest unsolved mysteries, The Princes of the Tower of London.  The Red Queen is the story of the Lancaster family during The War of the Roses.  Margaret Beaufort is the heiress to the red rose of Lancaster and she never falters in her belief that her family is the true heir to the crown and after being married to Edmund Tudor and giving birth to Henry, the hope of the House of Lancaster she has a vision that he will one day be the King of England.   After being widowed twice, she marries Thomas, Lord Stanley, who is nicknamed ‘The Fox”.  Margaret has been separated from her son Henry for most of his life and is now putting all her hopes in her third husband to help her bring him out of exile to England to fulfill his destiny, bring down the House of York and become the King of England.