Contents

Title Page

Prologue


1 The Night in Question

2 Dedications

3 Who Killed Beloved Papa?

4 Rouenna

5 Among the Merry Mourners

6 Beloved Papa Is Lowered into the Ground

7 Rouenna in Russia

8 Only Therapy Can Save Vainberg Now

9 One Day in the Life of Misha Borisovich

10 porkyrussianlover@heartache.com

11 Lyuba Vainberg Invites Me to Tea

12 Everything Has Its Limits

13 Misha the Bear Takes to the Air

14 The Norway of the Caspian

15 Golly Burton, Golly Burton

16 Gimme Freedom!

17 King Leopold’s Belgian Congo

18 To the Hyatt Station

19 My Gray Reptile Heart

20 The American Gambit

21 The School of Gentle Persuasion

22 My Nana

23 The Sevo Vatican

24 Why the Sevo and Svanï Don’t Get Along

25 A Sturgeon for Misha

26 Food, Decor, Service

27 The Men from SCROD

28 Dead Democrats

29 Bad Manservant

30 A Sophisticate and a Melancholic No Longer

31 The KBR Luau

32 The Commissar of Multicultural Affairs

33 Ideas Away

34 The Situation Worries Me

35 A Modest Proposal

36 Comidas Criollas

37 The End

38 My Mother Will Be Your Mother

39 Living in Shit

40 Talking to Israel

41 Birds of Prey

42 Saltines and Fresca

43 The Faith of My Fathers

Epilogue


Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Gary Shteyngart

Copyright