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The Russian Debutante's Handbook

3.47 of 5 stars 3.47 · rating details · 4,094 ratings · 503 reviews

TheRussian Debutante's Handbook introduces Vladimir Girshkin, one of the most original and unlikely heroes of recent times. The twenty-five-year-old unhappy lover to a fat dungeon mistress, affectionately nicknamed "Little Failure" by his high-achieving mother, Vladimir toils his days away as a lowly clerk at the bureaucratic Emma Lazarus Immigrant Absorption Society. When...more

Paperback, 476 pages

Published April 29th 2002 by Riverhead Trade

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Jan 07, 2013 Rebecca rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: family, crime, weird-or-annoying, reviewed

I feel like I've been reading a different book toeveryone else?! 'Satire of hipsters'?- maybe for about 10 pages, the rest just descended into the "comic" failures of Vladimir in the crime world... I was literally forcing myself to read up to certain pages, so in the end I quit.

To be honest, I was turned off from the very first nine pages which were full of people saying how good the book was. If the book is so good, why does it need that? Very suspicious...

I'm so disappointed, I have been want...more

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Jan 21, 2013 Jordan Gregory rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"A knowledgeable Russian lazing around in the grass, sniffing clover and munching on boysenberries, expects that at any minute the forces of history will drop by and discreetly kick him in the ass.
A knowledgeable Jew in a similar position expects history to spare any pretense and kick him directly in the face.
A Russian Jew (knowledgeable or not), however, expects both history and a Russian to kick him in the ass, the face, and every other place where a kick can be reasonably lodged. Vladimir u...more "A knowledgeable Russian lazing around in the grass, sniffing clover and munching on boysenberries, expects that at any minute the forces of history will drop by and discreetly kick him in the ass.
A knowledgeable Jew in a similar position expects history to spare any pretense and kick him directly in the face.
A Russian Jew (knowledgeable or not), however, expects both history and a Russian to kick him in the ass, the face, and every other place where a kick can be reasonably lodged. Vladimir understood this. His take on the matter was: Victim, stop lazing about in the grass." (347)

The above is one of many apt descriptions offered up by this book of its protagonist, Russian-Jewish American Vladimir Girshkin, as it chronicles the misadventures of his WTF-post-liberal-arts-college years. True to over-the-top Shteyngart form, this book endeavors to take our slovenly hero across several continents, several business enterprises, and several GORGEOUS girlfriends (projection much, Gary?). In overcoming his timidity and the tightening leash of his overbearing mother, Vladimir finds the courage to leave his demoralizing nonprofit job and pseudo-dominatrix girlfriend Challah for a life with Fran and NYC's plaid-clad hipsterati. But as the costs of vintage clothing and countless bar tabs start to add up, Vladimir needs money. Like, thousands a month to live as a true hipster (you can only imagine just how much I appreciated this section). But, of course, everything goes awry, and slightly rape-ish, and only catapults Vladimir into an even more absurd business enterprise across the Atlantic in "the Paris of the '90s," the diamond-in-the-rough of the former Soviet bloc, Prava. Shteyngart always knows how to pack a sardonic punch, and this, his first novel, is no exception.

With oh so much to love, my criticisms are almost moot. While reading, I sometimes felt as though Shteyngart was beating me over the head (or the ass, or the face) with Vladimir's feelings of displacement arising from his Russian-Jewish background. Yes, I realize this is, like, one of THE big points of the whole shebang. But, I occasionally found myself reading pages and pages of reiteration, seemingly just to drive into my puny brain that Vladimir does not belong anywhere. It was all beautifully written, of course, I didn't really mind, but it just seemed to lack the precision of his later works. This whole paragraph just sounds like I'm hatin' on the book for not being Super Sad True Love Story, so feel free to ignore it all.

In short, I have read all of Shteyngart's works at this point, in reverse order, and never once has he disappointed me. His writing is always poignant and insightful, and I look forward to whatever he decides to do next. (less)

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Apr 14, 2008 Eveline Chao rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

this was awesome and clever and hilarious. i described it to someone as hipster nabokov, which might sound off-putting, & there are parts that are SO clever and witty and hip that it verges close to making you start to hate it for its cleverness, but in the end it managed to keep me on its side.

it was also witty enough to make me do really dorky things like transcribe a couple lines i liked. here they be:

"Real humor is not supposed to be funny," Baobab said. "It's supposed to be tragic, lik...more

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May 16, 2008 Karen rated it 3 of 5 stars

I loved the language in this book - the weird, fresh phrases and the author's obvious fascination with English words, their sound and their usage. This seems to be a common thread in books by smart Russian/Eastern European men writing in English, though I haven't read enough of these authors to make a reliable generalization. The language was enough to carry me pretty far, but I felt that there wasn't much more to this book than that. The beginning was excellent - when Vladimir is working at a c...more

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Jun 16, 2007 shiv rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

i found this tome to be fun...but vladimir girshkin is so unsympathetic a character, i found it difficult to really enjoy. i get the feeling that i'm supposed to see him as a farce, or a transatlantic everyman who happens to have amazing adventures...mostly i just see him as shallow and afraid. i particularly loathe the judgmental inner monologues, wherein he weighs people's coolness quotients by just how high they rank on the douchebag scale.

i know it's supposed to be satire; i've just met too...more

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Sep 20, 2007 Katrin rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Most, especially ex-pats

As a former expatriate myself, I found this book to be comforting both in content and style. Being displaced in a foreign country is very amusing after the initial shock and confusion, the new country's idiosynchrasies clashing with your own. The reverse culture shock in coming back to the U.S. after being an expat in Europe is even more interesting than the original displacement, and this is observed and described in great detail and aptitude.

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Aug 17, 2007 Mark rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

This book was a hoot. Shteyngart has a wonderful sense of the absurd, and his penchant for eccentric characters is the main selling point of this romp in New York and an Eastern European city that has all the chaotic vibrancy and despair of any city emerging from behind the Iron Curtain. Well worth it.

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Jan 07, 2009 Antof9 rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2004-read, immigrants

From the back of the book:

"Breezily hilarious."
-New York Magazine
"Blisteringly funny."
-Salon.com
"Remarkable."
-New York Observer
"As funny and wicked as Waugh."
-Time
"Brilliant."
-Harper's Bazaar
"Terrifically charming."
-Vanity Fair
"A wholly original delight."
-Entertainment Weekly
"Energetic, sparkling."
-Los Angeles Times
"Not to be missed."
-The Wall Street Journal

Really? Seriously? Is it possible that this book is the author's own Cagliostro? Is it possible that all the lovers of this book (it won the...more

6 likes · like · see review

Sep 26, 2007 Octo rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: dunread

Hmm... I think I might have enjoyed this book far less had I not been thrown into the (former) U.S.S.R. born immigrant community in Chicago for the brief period of time that I was.

This book deals with all that interests me so much in that community - the courage to immigrate in the first place, the idealized American dream, the social disconnect that exists once immigrants arrive, the longing for for home, the misunderstanding of america, and the ultimate american question - what do you do when...more

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Mar 15, 2013 Tuckova rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I feel like I went on a date with this guy that everybody said I would totally love, and I don't want to be rude or anything but I'm really having a not-fun evening with him, I don't get the appeal, he seems like pretty much every other self-absorbed type telling his long long and not very interesting story (OH DOES YOUR MOTHER EXPECT TOO MUCH SUCCESS FROM YOU HOW SPECIAL AND UNIQUE TELL ME MORE), and I realized around page 250 out of 400 or so that as the book is not a human being it is not at...more

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Jan 08, 2011 Judith rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 20-under-40-authors

The Russian Debutante's Handbook by Gary Shteyngart is a hilarious romp from Alphabet City to “Prava,” the reputed “Paris of the 90s” and “SoHo of Eastern Europe”where Vladimir Borisovich Girshkin, slacker son of Yelena Petrovna, capitalist she-wolf and scourge of the hedge funds, goes to seek his fortune. Despite his Jewish heritage and his expensive education at a progressive Midwestern college, Vladimir lingered in a dead-end job at the Emma Lazarus Immigrant Absorption Society for four years...more

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Jun 16, 2007 Jean rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really liked it. The main character, Girshkin, begins as a meek immigration clerk in New York. It was so amusing to see him take a small step toward carving out a new identity for himself and discover he's suddenly swirling in several different worlds -- amid bohemian academics, mentally unstable immigrants, the Russian mafia, and the American expat community in Eastern Europe. The narrative introduces a string of characters and a series of jams for Girshkin to squirm into and out of. The writ...more

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Jan 27, 2008 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: amsterdam-used-books

I'm currently reading this and laughing out loud every ten minutes and wishing I could write dialog like this. But I can't.

Okay - I finished it and loved it... but like many a debut novel, it petered out at the end. It's like - I"m not sure how to end this thing so I'll throw every idea I have out there. The scenes with whipping the Groundhog in the Banya made me laugh and laugh and I have to sadly admit, I saw some of my self in the pretentious Americans hanging around in Prava. Would that I c...more

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Dec 23, 2008 Helen rated it 5 of 5 stars

sublime...hysterical, LOL writing. Appreciate this book more than most as a first-gen Russian, like the writer. his descriptions of Russian family relations, as well the inane expectations parents have for their american-born/raised children, was completely accurate.

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Dec 09, 2008 Jaclyn Cannon rated it 1 of 5 stars

I rarely stop reading books, because I need the closure. I think we need to have a rating for books like we have for movies- PG 13 for some violence, sexual innuendos, etc R for R-rated scenes. This book would be R-rated. I did not even get to half the book. I started reading it since it was a 'national best seller' and a 'new york times' book, 'winner of the stephen crane fiction award', 'washington post book owrld best book of the year', 'an american library assoication notable book', one of t...more

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Mar 15, 2013 Jan jr. Vaněk rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: for-sale, humour

Myslím, že mám tohle vydání (ledaže by přece jenom paperback); české (přeložila Kateřina Hronová; Triton 2007, 392 s.; chybí a doplňovat se mi ho nechce) ovšem taky a četl jsem primárně to, kvůli http://advojka.cz/archiv/2008/21/mini... silně poznamenané minimálním prostorem a potřebou vysvětlovat, o čem kniha vlastně je). Asi bude lepší tu text zazálohovat než jen odkazovat:

Leningradský rodák není první, kdo čerpá ze života (židovsko)ruských emigrantů v USA, ale zatím je nejúspěšnější – i proto...more

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Sep 20, 2011 Patrick McCoy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary-fiction

I stumbled across Gary Shteyngart’s entertaining first novel, The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, which is the story of a Jewish American Russian immigrant coming of age in his post-college days in the late 90s. Since this time is analogous with my own life I could relate to his description of glam nerds and the grunge fashion germinating out of the Pacific Northwest. And even though I didn’t live in Prague, which is where Vladimir Ghriskin finds himself halfway through this novel after a mix-up w...more

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Sep 06, 2011 Shadeyrack Quiroz rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I really liked this book. Once i started to read it I couldn't stop reading it. Gary Shteyngart really outdid himself on his 2002 dubut of The Russian Debutantes Hanbook. Gary introduces his readers to Vladimir Girshkin, a twenty five year old Russian Jew working for a non profit organization dedicated to helping foreigners settle into this country with ease. Something that Vladimir has been struggling with ever since he came to the United States at the age of 12. On Vlads birthday he is struck...more I really liked this book. Once i started to read it I couldn't stop reading it. Gary Shteyngart really outdid himself on his 2002 dubut of The Russian Debutantes Hanbook. Gary introduces his readers to Vladimir Girshkin, a twenty five year old Russian Jew working for a non profit organization dedicated to helping foreigners settle into this country with ease. Something that Vladimir has been struggling with ever since he came to the United States at the age of 12. On Vlads birthday he is struck by a very tempting deal. A deal that will help Vlad achieve the American dream. This journey that is offered to Vlad is very tempting and will offer both wisdom and money. All he has to do is get a Russian immigrant named Aleksander Rybokov citizenship. Before the young hero embarks on this journey he goes through some obstacles that include leaving his high school sweatheary Challah for another more sophisticated girl Francesca Russuo, confronting his parents about the way that he walks and his careerless life. After Vlad messes with the Catalan Cartel in order to make easy money in norder to keep his relationship with Francesca alive, Vlad is forced to leave the country meaning that he has to take Rybakovs offer. Baobab ( Vlads best friend ) and his girlfriend Roberta give Vlad some tips on how to avoid getting killed and how to get Rybakov what he wants. After Vlad sets up a fake ceremony where he manages to fool Rybakov that he is a citizen of the United States, Rybakov gets Vlad ready to go to Prava. Once Vlad arrives to Eastern Europe to meet the Groundhog ( Rybakov's son ), the real journey begins. Vlad embArks on an imperialist mission to take over Prava and eventually becomes " The King of Prava". Throughout this journey Vlad makes new friends and aquaintances that help him with this duty. But as Vlad reaches his prime of success the only way his journey could go is down. This book really brings you into the action and suspense of Vlads life. The Russian vocabulary makes it even more authentic and makes it even more interesting to know what the characters all comefrom the same backround. A great book!(less)

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Aug 23, 2011 Allison Doyle rated it 2 of 5 stars

I think those stars don't do my thoughts justice, because I honestly thought this book was "ok" and I debated whether to say I liked it or not, because two stars looks a bit harsh, doesn't it? This was another one of my Book Club books, and it's a beast -- I'd never heard of it before, and I will say that I had to struggle through the first part because, although the writing was well-crafted & the voice was unique, I didn't connect with the character or his experiences, and he alienated me i...more

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Mar 08, 2011 Margot rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

I may have enjoyed this one more if I had read it first out of Gary Shteyngart's novels. As his first novel, he's working on perfecting his standard plot and characters: an awkward, nerdy, slightly unattractive thirty-something Eastern European immigrant man going after an appealing, yet damaged woman who's out of his league, and works for a large, "evil" corporation abroad (preferably in an unstable former Soviet region) to gain power and respect. Write what you know, eh? I would suggest skippi...more

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Feb 27, 2011 Karl rated it 1 of 5 stars

I would give this 1.5 stars, if I could.

I wanted to like this book and there is enough contained herein to give Shteyngart one more chance. I'm not in need of liking the protagonist, and Vladimir is an unlikeable character. Combining this fact, with the strangely ficitionalized Prague as a backdrop and the absurd machinations of the plot, I found reading beyond page 362 of this edition to be not worth my time. [If that is irritating, so is reading another 100 pages.]

Prague in 1993 was such an r...more

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Feb 19, 2011 Withanhauser rated it 2 of 5 stars

I had pretty high expectations going into reading The Russian Debutante’s Handbook. I read Super Sad True Love Story over the summer, and thought that Shteyngart’s writing in it was witty and direct, and his character development deeply humanizing. Lenny Abramov, the protagonist of Super Sad True Love Story, expresses his feelings so strongly and outwardly that it’s hard not to sympathize and identify with him. If Shteygart’s writing style were to be relatively constant between books then The Ru...more I had pretty high expectations going into reading The Russian Debutante’s Handbook. I read Super Sad True Love Story over the summer, and thought that Shteyngart’s writing in it was witty and direct, and his character development deeply humanizing. Lenny Abramov, the protagonist of Super Sad True Love Story, expresses his feelings so strongly and outwardly that it’s hard not to sympathize and identify with him. If Shteygart’s writing style were to be relatively constant between books then The Russian Debutante’s Handbook—which according to its jacket is “breezily hilarious”, “blisteringly funny”, “terrifically charming”, and “as deadpan and funny as the young Evelyn Waugh”—would at least be an enjoyable read.

But, when it came down to it, I found the book and its humor to be pretty flat and tiresome. From the outset, Shteyngart races from character to character, setting to setting, irreverently poking fun at stereotypes while at the same time reinforcing them. And, while his satirizations are often valid, and his writing clever, the book feels tedious and smug as a result of them. Hipster Americans living in Prague? Ex-Soviet state gangsters? Wealthy, liberal New Yorkers? These are easy targets that Shteyngart really beats into the ground.

Shteyngart is keenly aware of the legacy of immigrant fiction, and its default message. The protagonists, as expatriots of their birth country, can no longer identify with their home culture and people. Alternatively, however, as new members to a foreign society, they are not wholly assimilated, and remain on the boundaries of its culture—both foreign and familiar. Shteygart recognizes this tradition while at the same time using it as a means to tease both Russia (his birth country) and America (his immigrant home). He sardonically describes Vladimir Girshkin, the protagonist of The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, as “the best of both worlds. Historically, a little dangerous, but, for the most part, nicely tamed by Coca-Cola, blue-light specials, and the prospect of a quick pee during commercial breaks (409).” Shteyngart knows that while his—and Vladimir’s—position is both expansive and enabling, it is also restrictive. And, thus, as with everything else, he makes fun of it.

What was most disappointing about The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, though, was its characters. It’s hard to enjoy a book where you don’t like any of the characters. And, it’s hard to like any of the characters when the author ridicules all of them. There is a decent amount of Lenny Abramov in Vladimir Girshkin. Like Lenny, Vladimir is the son of Russians Jews, striving to be part of a culture/group that he feels he can never wholly join. He is meek, insecure, and well-read. But, while Lenny is somewhat endearing, and soft, Vladimir is cruel and vindictive. He indiscriminately scams, uses, and lies to everyone, propelled by a feeling that he is owed something from the world by his in-between status.

There’s so much energy in The Russian Debutante’s Handbook. You would be hard-pressed to count all of the exclamation points Shteyngart uses. But, in the end, this energy—while enough to carry the reader through the book—feels stagnant and hollow. (less)

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Feb 12, 2011 Kinsey Holley is currently reading it

This is pretty damned funny - not sure if it's the literary masterpiece that the NYT and everybody else said it was, but it's very, very, very good. So often, literary "comic" novels aren't actually funny at all, but this one is. Trying to think of the other literary comic novels it resembles but nothing's occurring to me right now.

I'm an English major, and a librarian, so people are often surprised when they find that I don't read a lot of serious fiction - frankly, much of it just bores me to...more

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Jan 05, 2011 Will rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This is the second book of Shteyngart's I've read, the first being Absurdistan, and I'm most impressed by how he has managed to resolve the conflict at the heart of James Wood's critique of "Hysterical Realism." Though certainly a stylist of maximalism (his protagonist, Vladimir Girshkin, swings from lowly NYC nonprofit bureaucrat to gangster kingpin in a foreign nation within six months, through a series of absurd power grabs involving a nationalist literary magazine, dance clubs and an investm...more This is the second book of Shteyngart's I've read, the first being Absurdistan, and I'm most impressed by how he has managed to resolve the conflict at the heart of James Wood's critique of "Hysterical Realism." Though certainly a stylist of maximalism (his protagonist, Vladimir Girshkin, swings from lowly NYC nonprofit bureaucrat to gangster kingpin in a foreign nation within six months, through a series of absurd power grabs involving a nationalist literary magazine, dance clubs and an investment pyramid scheme) and occasionally too married to his own powers of hilarious invention (more so in Absurdistan, but here too, the jokes sometimes come 2 fast 2 furious for you to catch your breath, which leaves you giddy but dizzy and overwhelmed), Shteygnart, by closing down the range and cast of characters, and by focusing episodically on relationships between people within these absurd situations, manages to invest his novels with emotional weight and real people despite the non-realism of their surroundings.
I'm actually a little disappointed that I read Absurdistan before this one, as the two books are very similar, with Russian Debutante's Handbook a stronger, rawer work than his second. Reading Absurdistan first makes this feel almost like a dry run for that novel: Absurdistan takes the themes and plot developed in this novel even further: the Russian Jewish Emigree, the fictional Balkan state riven by political strife, the triple crises of Jewish and Russian and Russian-Jewish identity in diaspora, the effect of a collapsed Soviet Union on the Russian understanding of the world.
Russian Debutante's Handbook, however, centers around an everyman milquetoast (in the great tradition of first novels), a young man who, like Shteyngart, was educated at Oberlin (unnamed here), and finds himself adrift in late-90s New York. Indeed, this book is more autobiographically inspired than Absurdistan (despite the appearance of the author as a character in Absurdistan), which may explain the lessened ironical distance and disdain which mars large swathes of Absurdistan.
Shteyngart's great strength (other than his impeccable sense of humor) is in dissolving this ironical distance and revealing the vulnerability, fear and confusion that inspires it. His post-postmodern characters are not celebrated, like those found in Zadie Smith's work, or cruelly eviscerated, like Rushdie's, or merely empty mouthpieces for the author, like Delillo's. Instead, they are in turns foolhardy, funny, vulnerable, affectionate and lonely. In short, they are people.
Shteyngart achieves this through a variety of methods. By making powerful generational distinctions, he gives himself space to point out the particular style of The cold war ways of Vlad's parents and his superiors in the gang leave Girshkin mystified: he tries to deconstruct their actions and motivations (always incorrectly) through postmodern methods of comprehension. They, on the other hand, behave in a much less mediated, alienated way, and as such frequently overpower and overrule Girshkin in ways that leave him mystified.
Girshkin's entire method of confronting the world is mediated and neurotic, and he lives the life of the hedonistic psuedo-intellectual: always drunk, always valuing intellectual and moral motivation over the results of his actions; in short, a bourgeois in training. He leaves his "good" but unfulfiling work helping immigrants in NYC to live the high-priced lifestyle of his new girlfriend, Francesca, the reckless daughter of Manhattanite privilege that anyone who has lived in NYC or attended an east coast college has encountered. But when his involvement with gangster life gets ugly, he flees to Prava (a stand-in for Prague, and "the Paris of the 90s") where he is immediately installed as a higher up in mafioso "The Groundhog's" organization. He sets about exploiting the ex-pat community there, but justifies his actions as an exploiter with appeals to his heritage: he too is a poor ex-pat, Jews and Russians have suffered, certainly he has the right to take back what is his.
This moral relativism cloaked in identity politics is exactly the rot at the center of post-modern leftist thought, and it isn't until shit really hits the fan and Vlad is forced into immediate physical action (rather than merely dialoguing his way through the world) that he realizes the lie at the heart of his beliefs. Shteyngart has built a powerful critique of this style of thought (and also this style of literature) by using some of its basic tools and themes, and then imploding them by pushing a character to experience their logical extremes.
Of course, there are many other levels of dialogue in this novel, and many other points of entry as well. Shteyngart takes this strength of Hysterical realism, addressing many issues at once, but purges the stylistic weaknesses by narrowing the range of characters, situations and stories, and instead focusing on one protaganist's journey through a disjointed landscape. (less)

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Aug 06, 2010 Laurel Zuckerman rated it 5 of 5 stars

After one false start and a cooling off period of several months, I delved into Shteyngart's novel a second time and, to my amazement, found it hilarious. He is a great satirist, the little Russian, but you don't want to be on the receiving end of his kind attentions. When he draws a bead on the education dispensed at the $25,000 progressive mid-western universities and the sanitized international middle class, he is, unfortunately, not entirely unfair. His narrator, a verbally adroit, arrogant...more

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Nov 10, 2009 Emily rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2003

The book I read last week was first-time novelist Gary Shteyngart's The Russian Debutante's Handbook, which my father purchased for me presumably because the back of the cover says it's "as deadpan and funny as the young Evelyn Waugh" and that "Shteyngart has given us a literary symbol for this new immigrant age, much as Saul Bellow or Henry Roth did in theirs." Luckily, these pronouncements are true. You can hear Bellow in sentences like, "She turned away from him, and he was left to stare into...more The book I read last week was first-time novelist Gary Shteyngart's The Russian Debutante's Handbook, which my father purchased for me presumably because the back of the cover says it's "as deadpan and funny as the young Evelyn Waugh" and that "Shteyngart has given us a literary symbol for this new immigrant age, much as Saul Bellow or Henry Roth did in theirs." Luckily, these pronouncements are true. You can hear Bellow in sentences like, "She turned away from him, and he was left to stare into the stern little bun of her hair." (310)

Insofar as it takes place in New York City and the made-up Mitteleuropaisch city of Prava in 1993, I suppose this would appeal to plenty of readers. I think there is even more pleasure in it for readers like me, who have been steeped in the measured realism of the 19th century Russian novel, and who see those attitudes and styles here warped first by the pressures of Soviet communism and then by the bewildering free-for-all of American capitalism.

The skeleton of the plot: Vladimir Girshkin, only son of striving Russian immigrants and dropout of a prestigious Midwestern college, works at an immigrant "absorption" society. There he meets an eccentric Russian man who says that if Vladimir can effect his becoming a citizen, he will hook Vladimir up with his rich gangster son in Prava. Vladimir finds himself in debt and hunted by mobsters, so he indeed takes off for Prava and finds himself involved with the too-cool American expat community--with the purpose of criminally defrauding them. To say much more would give too much away.

Though I do not usually like picaresque stories with characters that waft in and out unloved by the author, Vladimir is such a strong and amusing personality that I was immediately drawn in. Prava, with its idiosyncratic "Stolovan" population and Communist detritus, is absolutely believable; and I enjoyed the second half of the book much more than the opening in New York. (This book certainly shows up the tiresome European interlude in The Corrections.) Do I believe the epilogue? It seems like a joke, but I guess it's the joke that America plays on its immigrants.(less)

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Dec 10, 2011 Lauren rated it 4 of 5 stars

Gary Shteyngart has written a great first novel, filled with idiosyncratic characters and their over the top experiences. With 'The Russian Debutante's Handbook,' he has established himself as a master of social critique and comic lunacy.

One of the beauties of this novel is how it skillfully juxtaposes two worlds. The first half of the novel explores the peculiarities of New York City through the eyes of Vladimir Girshkin, an immigrant Russian Jew working as an assimilation facilitator at an imm...more

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Sep 07, 2010 Boris Sukharlev rated it 5 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. The book the Russian debutantes Handbook is a great book to read as it deals with many issues that people are facing in our day and age, with the theme of how the American dream plays a vital role in immigrants is vividly shown in the book. This book resembles a previous book I read Bone by Fae Myenne Ng. Like Bone the protagonist of the Russian debutantes handbook is a child of immigrant parents, who has been influenced by his past life in russia as well as his present life in the united states...more The book the Russian debutantes Handbook is a great book to read as it deals with many issues that people are facing in our day and age, with the theme of how the American dream plays a vital role in immigrants is vividly shown in the book. This book resembles a previous book I read Bone by Fae Myenne Ng. Like Bone the protagonist of the Russian debutantes handbook is a child of immigrant parents, who has been influenced by his past life in russia as well as his present life in the united states.
Vladimir is an underachiever 25 year old who works at a dead end job. His parents are rich and want their son to embody the "American dream" that they made for themselves ( albeit by health insurance fraud.) Vladimir is seen as a failure in the eyes of his parents and of himself , however things change when an old Russian immigrant Mr Rybakov asks for his services in making him an American citizen. In return Mr Rybakob promises that his son will give him wealth and fortune in the new city of Pava. The author paints a vivid picture in my mind of the characterization of Vladimir. Like The book Bone the author writes certain words in a foreign language in this case Russian, to expand of Vladimir values and traditions. For example using the term mamachka which mean mother dearest or his mother telling him how he walks “like a Jew” (45) shows not only the culture he is in the family being self hating Jews but to show his mother dominance in his life. I ,as a Russian immigrant completely relate to the hardship Vladimir end ours, maybe not the problems with the mob ( did not enjoy that stereotype in the book but the problems regarding trying to make my parents proud and the American dream. While reading the 2 books I was supposed to read over summer I discovered certain points that the author of “How to read literature like a college professor” pointed out that were evident in this book. In the book How to read like literature like a college professor Thomas C foster pointed out that when reading literary novel one has to be on the lookout for meals as they represent a communion between individuals. As I was reading the Russian debutant I noticed this very act, in the begging of the book Vladimir goes to Mr Rybakov's house and has dinner with him. This act at first may seem not important but after the author started describing the herring that they were eating as well as the vodka shots and the Russian songs they were singing together I understood the message. Both of these individuals have a common ground, regardless of age difference both embrace their past culture and as well as beginning their life anew in America. This is the central theme of the novel , immigration and all the hardships that come with it. This is why this book is so great, as every single person can relate as they or a generation before them know firsthand the many obstacles we faced in adopting to a new country and to truly embody the concept of the American dream. (less)

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Dec 04, 2010 E rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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My ultimate credo: A story becomes literature when it transcends its genre. When it can seduce almost any reader, regardless of its plot, because the characters are so well crafted, the writing is seamlessly poetic, and nimble comedy keeps any tragedy from taking itself too seriously. Shteyngart's novel exceeds these expectations, having entranced a reader who previously found every mafia tale she'd ever encountered supremely nauseating. While a few classic features of mobster fiction can be fou...more

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Oct 10, 2012 Moses Kilolo rated it 4 of 5 stars

Somewhere in the middle of this book I wanted to hate it. For reasons unrelated to the book. Or the authorial style. Or the story. I just fell sick. Deep into the night, while the world around me was quietly asleep, I walked in and out of my room. It's 3. Now its 4. And shall it be 6 or 7 when the light is adequate. When Nairobi rises from its slumber. This pain. So terrible. (Perhaps I shouldn't say where, in my mortal body, the pain racked,scaring the shit off me. Easy to loose your body. Don'...more

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About Gary Shteyngart

Gary Shteyngart is an American writer born in Leningrad, USSR (he alternately calls it "St. Leningrad" or "St. Leninsburg"). Much of his work is satirical and relies on the invention of elaborately fictitious yet somehow familiar places and times.

His first novel, The Russian Debutante's Handbook (2002), received the Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction and the National Jewish Book Award.

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“This would be the worst birthday of his life. Vladimir's best friend Baobab was down in Florida covering his rent, doing unspeakable things with unmentionable people. Mother, roused by the meager achievements of Vladimir's first quarter-century, was officially on the warpath. And, in possibly the worst development yet, 1993 was the Year of the Girlfriend. A downcast, heavyset American girlfriend whose bright orange hair was strewn across his Alphabet City hovel as if cadre of Angora rabbits had visited. A girlfriend whose sickly-sweet incense and musky perfume coated Vladimir's unwashed skin, perhaps to remind him of what he could expect on this, the night of his birthday: Sex. Every week, once a week, they had to have sex, as both he and this large pale woman, this Challah, perceived that without weekly sex their relationship would fold up according to some unspecified law of relationships.” — 3 people liked it

“I prepared for my meal in the usual fashion: fork in my left hand; my dominant right clenched into a fist on my lap, ready to punch anyone who dared take away my food.” — 2 people liked it

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