Born as Igor Shteyngart in Leningrad, Gary Shteyngart recounts his family's emigration from the Soviet Union to the United States and the challenges of growing up as a young Russian-Jewish immigrant in New York. Blending sharp humor with emotional honesty, he reflects on childhood insecurities, family expectations, cultural displacement, and his eventual path to becoming an acclaimed writer. The memoir is both deeply personal and broadly resonant, exploring themes of identity, belonging, and the immigrant experience with wit and compassion.

Gary Shteyngart

Little Failure. A Memoir